kNaru0online
(Strategic)... I dined at the Baron Okuro's Tokyo house. He owned several residences throughout the Empire. The dining room, as expected, was too cold for me to do more than pretend to eat, though about nineteen courses were served. After dinner the Baron took me downstairs into what he called his "Korean room." It was about 11 by 15 feet, the ceiling perhaps 7 feet high. Red drugget covered the floor mats. The walls were very simple, a soft, pale yellow. We knelt on the floor for conversation and Turkish coffee. It seemed as if the climate had changed. No, not the coffee. It was spring. We soon became warm and comfortable. We were sitting there again on our knees on the floor, and felt an indescribable warmth. There was no visible heating apparatus, nor did it feel as if there were. It was not a question of *heating* at all but of *climate*. The Harvard graduate who interpreted for the Baron explained: "'Korean room' means a heated room underneath. The heat from the fire built outside is drawn back and forth through ducts or flues underneath the floor, which are built with partitions, and the smoke and heat go up a high chimney at the opposite corner from where the fire is burning. That indescribable comfort from heat below was a revelation. I arranged at once to have space made under the bathroom floors in the Imperial Hotel for electric heating elements to generate heat. The tiled floors and the built-in tiled bathtub were always warm. It was a pleasure to enter the bathroom barefoot. The experiment was successful. All the unsightly electric heaters (dangerous too in a bathroom) were removed. I particularly hated radiators. I had a perfect chance to get rid of all that cumbersome equipment in the building. Not to create a heated interior, but a healthy, dustless, serene climate. And the heat being necessarily below, lower indoor temperatures are desirable. About 65 degrees [Fahrenheit] would seem sufficient for the average person. But neighbors coming from overheated houses would feel the chill at first. It is true that a natural climate is created instead of an artificial one, which is, of course, much healthier. I resolved to try it in my own home at the first opportunity. That opportunity seemed to be the Nakoma Country Club, but that Indian-style project remained only a beautiful plan. Then came the Johnson Administration Building project. That was it, and we went ahead with the installation, but all the professional heating contractors, save one (Westerlin and Campbell), laughed at the idea and would not do anything in connection with it. By chance, however, the smaller Jacobs House project came in between and was finished before the larger adventure (the Johnson Building) was underway.
There is.
Don't spread false rumors about Frank Lloyd Wright's autobiography not having such content ever again.
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