カレーハウス バブルクンド

There is a small curry shop on the first floor of a wooden house on the seaside where the setting sun is beautiful.

If you follow stepping stones in the garden from the street, you will come to a wooden window with a hanging neon sign. This part used to be the entrance of the existing house, and the existing tiles and newly installed tiles emphasize the frontality of the “former entrance”. Here you turn 90 degrees and after a short distance you reach a semi-outdoor terrace connected to the garden. This terrace, which was created by recessing the existing outer wall, has the function of connecting the room and the garden like Engawa of a Japanese house, and this place itself becomes a comfortable dining hall. Shadows of swaying leaves fall on the table and earthen walls, and butterflies wander in from time to time. Looking up, the curved ceiling with a scraped finish stagnates the air, suggesting an interior space that extends beyond.

In order to create a calm space inside the store, I consciously limited the path of light by removing the existing window. Delicate and elegant light delivered through transmission, reflection, and diffraction, such as light shining through the trees, light reflecting off the curved ceiling, light leaking through the Sudare blinds in the backyard, and light falling through the atrium of the house, strokes the surface of earthen walls and Kawara tiles, revealing the handiwork of craftsmen.

The curry dishes created for this restaurant, inspired by the sea of Sri Lanka, have a different expression depending on how several types of blue-based glazes are mixed. The marble pattern, combined with the yellow turmeric rice, the various curries, and side dishes that are mixed together on the plate, is a visual feast for the eater.

At twilight when the number of customers has calmed down, the setting sun dyes the sandy beach red in front of the store. As if to echo the setting sun, the round neon sign emits a faint electric discharge sound and glows red.

The red sun rises from the sand and sets while dyeing the sand red again. The wind creates mounds of sand, flattens them again, and passes away. It whispers many things brought from the end of a distant world, but in a language that humans cannot understand. There is only dead, silent loneliness. The city of Babbulkund was right in the middle of such a desert.
Taruho Inagaki “The Strange Story of the Yellow Desert”