Huntington Library 12-31-23 (59)
Outside, specialists in traditional Japanese building techniques who had flown in from Japan for the project—head carpenter Katsuhiko Nakano; carpenters Kohei Yamamoto, Jonathan Billings, and Jonathan Stollenmayer; head plasterer Hiromasa Murakami; and plasterer Emily Reynolds—continued work on the gatehouse, a replica of the structure that once fronted the magistrate’s walled compound in Marugame. (“We know what it looked like from aerial photos taken after World War II, during the Allied occupation of Japan, and from family photos probably taken in the 1950s. A couple of decades later, a typhoon destroyed the gate,” Hori said.)
When finished, the Japanese Heritage House will be “an encyclopedia of Japanese architectural style and building techniques,” Hori noted. A primary resource for scholars, architects, and others, it will feature examples of 10 of the 17 traditional skills of Japanese wooden architecture that UNESCO named in 2020 as part of the organization’s compendium of the “intangible cultural heritage of humanity.”
These include traditional interior and exterior sakan plastering, the production of woven rice straw tatami mats for flooring, Japanese wood joinery, the production of gold leaf (found on paper screens), lacquering, and clay-tile roofing.
Huntington Library 12-31-23 (59)
Outside, specialists in traditional Japanese building techniques who had flown in from Japan for the project—head carpenter Katsuhiko Nakano; carpenters Kohei Yamamoto, Jonathan Billings, and Jonathan Stollenmayer; head plasterer Hiromasa Murakami; and plasterer Emily Reynolds—continued work on the gatehouse, a replica of the structure that once fronted the magistrate’s walled compound in Marugame. (“We know what it looked like from aerial photos taken after World War II, during the Allied occupation of Japan, and from family photos probably taken in the 1950s. A couple of decades later, a typhoon destroyed the gate,” Hori said.)
When finished, the Japanese Heritage House will be “an encyclopedia of Japanese architectural style and building techniques,” Hori noted. A primary resource for scholars, architects, and others, it will feature examples of 10 of the 17 traditional skills of Japanese wooden architecture that UNESCO named in 2020 as part of the organization’s compendium of the “intangible cultural heritage of humanity.”
These include traditional interior and exterior sakan plastering, the production of woven rice straw tatami mats for flooring, Japanese wood joinery, the production of gold leaf (found on paper screens), lacquering, and clay-tile roofing.