MIDDLEBURY — On Thursday, Jan. 29, the public and Middlebury College community are invited to the dedication of the timber frame of a Japanese teahouse, built by 12 Middlebury students over the course of the four-week 2026 Winter Term. The teahouse will be dedicated in a traditional Shinto ceremony.

Taught by Douglas Brooks, a boatbuilder with extensive experience working in Japan, the course is called “Building the Japanese Teahouse” and seeks to introduce students to the pedagogy of Japanese apprenticeship. Class is conducted largely in silence; students are instead forced to learn relying on focus, perseverance and observation.

Two students will talk about and demonstrate a tea ceremony; a practice closely linked to Zen Buddhism, in which an otherwise prosaic act — making a cup of tea — is highly ritualized. What on the one hand is simple is simultaneously complicated; participating in the tea ceremony focuses one’s attention on something specific, clearing one’s mind to contemplate what is universal.

The dedication will take place at 4:30 p.m. in the Johnson Gallery, on the second floor of the Johnson Arts Building on the Middlebury campus. The teahouse will remain in the space as a centerpiece of an exhibit of Japanese textiles, titled “Cultural Fabrics,” which runs from Feb. 9 to March 13.