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Essay

Home schooling

By Kit Pancoast Nagamura


日本の家に学ぶ

東日本大震災を受けて、木造の建物は危険だからと、東京都中央区にある佃の長屋を取り壊す計画があるらしい。 下目地をこよなく愛する筆者は、日本の伝統的な暮らしから学べることは多いはずだと嘆くのだが…。

While shooting images for an article recently, I found myself weaving between narrow lanes in a neighborhood of prewar nagaya, rows of houses with copper cladding and bamboo detailing in the windows. A light rain started to fall, and I took shelter in the close lanes between the homes. Moisture in the air released a kind of primal incense from the wooden walls. A television was droning in one home, and laughter tinkled out from another. Rain dripped off low roofs as I shared a narrow doorway with a mildly antisocial cat, until finally the rain ceased.

I thought to myself how intimate and closely-knit the neighborhood felt. Was I indulging in mere nostalgia, I wondered, having grown up myself in a wooden house? Nostalgia or not, I decided, I would never feel the same intimacy and sensual pleasure roaming around a block of concrete apartment buildings. The scale, attention to detail, use of natural materials, and blurring of interior and exterior spaces used in traditional Japanese homes just suggests a uniquely soft dynamic.

Later that day, I learned that the 3/11 earthquake has put that neighborhood on the slate for destruction; rumor has it all the wooden homes will have to go because they might be unsafe. But hasn't that neighborhood already proven itself as firm as the fanciest skyscraper in the city? Why tear it down? And, equally crucial a question, with what would the nagaya be replaced?

These questions were in the back of my mind when two days later I attended TEDxTokyo 2011, a colloquium featuring some of Japan's most innovative thinkers. I chatted with presenter Masaaki Takeuchi, a visionary architect in charge of Shimizu Corporation's Project Green Float, a massive self-sustaining floating housing project set to be completed in 2025. "It's not that wood is dangerous," he allowed, "because modern wood buildings, if made well, can be stronger than steel-framed ones. And old ones can be retrofitted, too.

"However," he added, "if old structures were cheaply made, they may not be safe."

The safety of residents in old nagaya must come first, but perhaps the feel of the neighborhood could be saved by retrofitting or replacing the buildings with newer, strong versions of the traditional homes.

I headed back to the neighborhood to ask residents, many elderly, their thoughts. "Our homes are much more flexible than concrete ones in earthquakes," one man said, "plus we can fix them ourselves if something breaks." "These wood structures display the artistry of carpenters," another said. A woman chimed in saying, "There are chemicals in concrete buildings. They might be better insulated against sound and weather, but they don't feel healthy."

It's unreasonable to dream of all Tokyoites returning to the old nagaya lifestyle — population numbers and resource limitations probably make that prohibitive. Instead, the city may well follow Takeuchi's brave green vision out to sea. In the meantime, however, it might be wise to protect what few traditional Japanese style homes remain. Interconnected with nature, made of recyclable natural materials, flexible, strong, artistic and socially open, they have lessons yet to impart and embody elements we should not forget in the future.



Shukan ST: June 3, 2011

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