Zui-Ki-Tei Tea House in the Garden of the Museum of Ethnography
Photo: Bo Gabrielsson / CC BY 4.0, modified.
Overview
Zui-Ki-Tei is a freestanding Japanese tea ceremony house in the park outside the Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm. The museum states that the present tea house was built in 1990 on the site where an earlier tea house of the same name had stood since 1935. The 1935 structure burned down in 1969, while the present tea house continues to serve as a public cultural and ceremonial site connected with Japanese tea practice.
History
The original tea house was established in 1935 in the museum park and is associated with the Japanologist Ida Trotzig, who helped introduce Japanese tea culture in Sweden. The museum’s 2025 lecture page describes the first tea house as built in 1935 and notes cooperation between the museum, the Friends of the Zui-Ki-Tei Tea House and the Chado Urasenke Sweden Tankokai Association in preserving and managing the tea house tradition. The present tea house was erected in 1990 after the earlier building had been destroyed by fire in 1969.
Design features
The site is centred on a traditional Japanese tea ceremony house used for chanoyu / chadō events. The tea house stands in the museum park and functions as a cultural object, ceremonial space and garden feature. The available official descriptions emphasise the tea house itself rather than a fully documented Japanese garden layout; therefore the garden type should follow the tea-house function.
Garden elements
Buildings
Enclosures
Stones
Other elements
Current status
Extant Japanese tea house and tea-garden setting in the park outside the Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm. The original Zui-Ki-Tei tea house was erected in the museum park in 1935 and is described by the museum as probably the first Japanese tea house in Europe. It burned down in 1969. The present Zui-Ki-Tei was built in Japan, shipped to Sweden, and erected on the current site in 1990. It is maintained in cooperation with tea-culture organisations and is used for Japanese tea ceremony events, guided visits and seasonal open days. The site should be recorded primarily as a Japanese tea house with associated garden setting, rather than as a full-scale independent Japanese garden.