The Japanese Bath
by Bruce Smith, Yoshiko Yamamoto

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Book Reviews of The Japanese Bath

Book Review: 4 for the photojournalism and philosophy, 3 for ideas
Summary: 4 Stars

The photos are lovely (my favorites are the "created scenery" on pp. 30, 33, and 47), and one can hardly but envy those wealthy enough to have the space, let alone the wherewithal, to have a separate building devoted to the "zen" of bathing. Unfortunately I live in a town house, and I rather doubt that the association would appreciate my extending my bathroom into the commons-I could be wrong, but I sincerely doubt it; they're not terribly open minded! I suspect I am not alone in my lack of space for major remodeling.

Taking the above quote from page 13 as a starting point, what I did gain from the book was a realization that in our fast paced Western lives we can still find moments of relaxation and relief from stress by creating small environments in our homes conducive to the Eastern concept of "centering." It needn't be hours long and one needn't even be consciously aware of the effect to derive a benefit from the experience. While The Japanese Bath provided some information useful to the average person for creating a bathing room (it does discuss tubs and wood for making them), there was little of the nitty gritty of how to apply the philosophy to the smaller homes most of us live in these days.

The information one gleans from The Japanese Bath has to be more indirect. The notes on the Japanese "palette," for instance, suggest the use of darker, less vivid colors to create a quieter, more restful room. Certainly this idea above all gave me a starting point that finally helped me pull some of my other ideas more smoothly into place. I'd been struggling with loosely associated "great" ideas for over a year. The notion that brighter isn't necessarily better also gave me plans for less direct lighting-after all one isn't always shaving or putting on makeup. Integrating something of nature into the bathroom-table top fountains, plants, an aquarium, etc.-while it seems a bit `70s, certainly isn't a bad one; furthermore it's affordable and not terribly space intensive.

Still while it's nice to see how the other half lives-or at least the other 5%- the book really is more of a coffee table display than a practical book for the average home owner to make design plans.

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