An empty room glowing through a glass wall in the dark cedar forest at night

The Archive

Spaces thathold their breath.

Twelve rooms of evidence.

Every room, bath and garden at MORI was built from what the site already held: basalt split by hand from the old quarry, hinoki felled on the slope above, and concrete cast against cedar planks. These photographs are the record of that.

They were taken across a full year, so the same stone appears under snow, under maple leaves and under summer rain. Select any photograph to see it full screen.

Wooden geta sandals set out on a basalt step at the open cedar door of the entrance

Beads of condensation on a wet basalt wall in the bathhouse

Spring water spilling in a glassy sheet over a basalt lip into a hinoki basin

A long hinoki bath running along a wall of raw quarry rock and moss, with steam in soft daylight

A cedar sliding door half open onto tatami, a folded futon and a basalt wall

A single seasonal branch in a hand-formed vase in a concrete alcove lit by a slot of daylight

Overhead view of whisked matcha in a hand-formed bowl with its bamboo whisk resting beside it

Split basalt stepping stones through thick moss between cedar trunks in dawn mist

Cushion moss and young ferns growing over volcanic rock, beaded with dew

Raked pale gravel flowing around a single basalt stone on a quarry terrace

Hassun, the kaiseki landscape platter, arranged on a cedar board by evening light

Tall bamboo culms in thin morning mist beside a moss-covered concrete garden wall