Back to buildersProvides assembly-kit tea rooms that can be set up in a short time.
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Source: millieme.jp
A Kyoto company whose aim is to bring the aesthetics nurtured by tea into modern life. It carries on the "Sabie" ideal coined by its late founder Masakazu Izumi, and also runs the mail-order catalogue "Shikitei" and Urasenke-related materials and equipment.
Its architecture division, Sen Art Studio, specialises in designing and building tea rooms and sukiya architecture and has created many tea rooms in Japan and abroad, including Urasenke-related ones. It traces back to a studio founded in 1953 by Mitsuhiko Otani, third son of the 14th Urasenke grand master, and passed via Tankosha to Millieme in 2024.
It also sells assembly tea rooms that can be set up in a short time: a 4.5-mat room at ¥4,180,000 and a 2-mat room at ¥3,300,000 (tax included, transport extra), usable for tea gatherings and events as well. Suited to those who want a maker with Urasenke roots, from full sukiya construction to assembly rooms.
A university tea room facing the atrium of a new building: an 8-mat room, a table-seating (ryūrei) area, mizuya and roji, about 102 m². Visitors can watch temae in the 8-mat room from the ryūrei seats without stepping onto the tatami. The fabric of the low cupboard uses a dragon motif associated with Hong Kong.
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Built as the Urasenke Washington D.C. dojo in an office building near the White House: 8-mat and 6-mat rooms, a ryūrei area, mizuya and waiting room, about 122.5 m². A roji with a usable tsukubai was made on the balcony, and the ranma carries inlay work of cherry blossoms floating on the Potomac.
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A 4.5-mat tea room with the alcove at the guest end, plus mizuya, kitchen and washroom, 39.4 m². Guests step from a covered corridor down to a roofed roji, so they can enter even in rain; the inner roji sits one step lower than the outer. It was built so as not to damage the roof of the main house.
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Built for the 1,300th-anniversary commemoration: a formal ryūrei (table-style) room on 12 tatami with a 4-mat waiting room, 44.5 m². The ceiling is woven Kitayama cedar with persimmon-tanned paper; because no daylight reaches the room, LEDs set behind the shoji give a natural glow.
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A classroom converted into an 8-mat tea room with mizuya (25 m²) under a Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs program to promote Japanese culture. People can watch the temae from chairs around the room. The firm also relocated the tea room within the university in 2013.
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A 55.6 m² tea room made of three parts: a ryūrei area (12.5 mats), a raised upper room and the host's mat. Closing the fusuma in front of the host's mat switches to temae at a ryūrei stand, and different floorboards mark where the main guest and host sit. The ideas came from the host who uses the room.
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A tea room of 8 mats, 2 mats and a board-floored area (37.5 m²) inside the 18th-century villa that became the museum in 1952. The theme was blending with Switzerland without disturbing the building; the museum's landmark tree is visible from the room, and the original ridge beam and beams form part of the interior.
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A converted tea room of 8 mats, entrance waiting area and mizuya (34 m²), opened to students, parents and neighbours. Though inside a concrete school building, the finish hides the original window positions. The mizuya connects to the next-door science prep room, and the cupboard pairs a distant-wave pattern evoking the Suma sea with plover pulls.
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When the temple expanded, a former office was turned into a tea room for serving parishioners and neighbours: 4 mats, earthen-floor area and mizuya, 16.5 m², designed to change with use. It makes generous use of materials the priest had gathered over many years. Featured in the Tankō special issue "Chashitsu wo tsukuru".
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A detached timber tea house (253.3 m²) on the former samurai-residence grounds of Himeji Castle, sukiya in style yet mindful of samurai architecture. With 6-, 8-, 4.5- and 3-daime-mat rooms plus waiting rooms, roji and bench, it can host large gatherings. Design supervised by the Urasenke Grand Master; main contractor Obayashi.
View on official site ↗Photos: Millième official website
The official list shows 111 projects: 10 in the 1980s, 35 in the 1990s, 37 in the 2000s, 26 in the 2010s and 3 in the 2020s. Most are listed as designed by Urasenke and built by Millieme.
In Japan they include tea rooms and tatami-room remodels in private homes, roof repairs at Urasenke, tea-room work at Rurikō-in and a wooden fence at Rikyū's residence site in Sakai. Abroad: rebuilding the Urasenke Paris association's Seiyū-an (2019), a private home in Houston, an assembly tea room for the National Museum of Romania, Zhejiang University, Busan University of Foreign Studies, and Ryokusui-an at the Emirates Palace, Abu Dhabi (2009).
Major projects have pages listing the tea room's name, location, room layout, floor area, completion year, client and publications, with floor plans available as PDFs, so you can compare sizes and layouts with your own plans.
Photos: Millième official website
| Company | Millieme Co., Ltd. |
|---|---|
| Address | 648-1 Zenshoin-cho, Kamigyo-ku, Kyoto |
| Representative | Hiromi Otani, President |
| Phone | +81-75-451-5111 |
| Business | Food mail-order catalogue "Shikitei"; Urasenke-related products (Washindana, school tea materials); design, construction and maintenance of tea rooms and sukiya buildings |
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