_There is something about the great spacious apartments, airy and full of mellow light, that is curiously satisfying, and one feels the absence of furniture only with a sense of relief. Free from the rivalry of crowded furnishings, men and women take on a quite singular quality of dignity and importance.4 _ 'The "singular quality of dignity and importance" is one of the most fundamental discoveries of Zen interior designers. In the absence of decorative distractions, one must concentrate on his own mind and on the minds of others present. Host and guest find their focus on one another has been deliberately enhanced, breaking down the barriers of separateness and individual identity. Each word, each gesture is rendered richer, more significant. Heinrich Engel, who understood the source of the mysterious effects which Ralph Adams Cram could only describe in bewilderment, has explained this phenomenon: _[The individual interior room] provides an environment that requires man's presence and participation to fill the void. Room in the Western residence is human without man's presence, for man's memory lingers in the multiple devices of decoration, furniture, and utility. Room in the Japanese residence becomes human only through man's presence. Without him, there is no human trace. Thus, the empty room provides the very space where man's spirit can move freely and where his thoughts can reach the very limits of their potential.5 _ Stated differently, the Japanese room forces introspection on those who enter it alone--a function completely in keeping with the interests of Zen. Souls who have felt the weight of too much liberty (and undeserved decorator's license) will find here a solemn retreat and a heightened sense of internal awareness. Here as never before one's mind is one's own, undistracted by the prosaic implements of living with which Westerners ordinarily engulf themselves. One should be warned, however, that this liberation of the consciousness is powerful stuff. The Japanese Zen room is a concentration cell which, although it can unite the minds of those who share it, can often tell those who enter it alone more than they want to know about their own interior lives.