'To know the spirit of Japan, pass by a tea house!'

I've been meaning to post this film for a while — "Chambre du The," a half-hour 2005 documentary about the building of a tea house in Paris a few years earlier.

Architect Masao Nakamura is interviewed and filmed as he constructs this gift from the nation of Japan. The footage of the work is remarkably peaceful to watch, and Nakamura remarks about his goals for the space — a space in which he imagines the universe itself to be re-created.

"Take time for somebody — this is tea," he says.