Manshu-in Temple (曼殊院)~Kyoto Traditional Architecture guide~

In Manshu-in Temple (曼殊院), there is one of the rare tea houses one can actually visit the inside of the building. With its eight windows, the aptly named tea house is called Hassouken (八窓軒), and it is known as one of the three most famous tea houses in Kyoto.

There are eight windows in this 3-tatami teahouse, and the number of windows are said to represent the eight phases of Buddhism. They are integral to defining the interior space of the tea house. Facing the tea garden side is an opening called nijiriguchi (躙口), which roughly translate to “crawling-in” opening, where guests would enter the tea house from.

The window to the right of the nijiriguchi is called the rainbow window. It gets its name from the colours one would see on the shoji screen through the diffuse reflection of the light by the different plants and surfaces in the garden, prompting the colour on the windows to change depending on the weather, the time of the day and the season of the year.