Mushikiken "Shelter of Unchanging Color"
From the main entrance, a hallway leads back into the house to the Mushikiken, which functions as a waiting
room (machiai). The original room is thought to have been built by Senso, but the present room is attributed
to Fukensai, who had extensive changes made. The room's name, "Shelter of Unchanging Color," derives from the phrase
"Pines throughtout time have unchanging color." A wooden plaque with Chikuso's calligraphy of this phrase hangs outside
the room.
Two wide fusuma separate the main room of five tatami from an anteroom of three daime-size tatami. The wall
at the right side of the guests' area is papered and serves as the place to hang a scroll. A wooden-floored
area the size of one tatami serves as a kind of toko alcove, where flowers are usually displayed. Formerly, this
area served as a landing for a covered walkway which communicated to the Yanagi-no-ma anteroom of the Kan'untei.
The sunken hearth (ro) is located in the right corner of the tatami where the host sits to prepare tea, above
which is an attached shelf called Senso's Kugibako-dana, "nail-box shelf."
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