I’ve always admired traditional Japanese carpentry. The way the artisans are able to join beams and posts firmly –with no metal fasteners– is amazing. I even bought a handbook, The Complete Japanese Joinery, to learn more about the age-old principles and methods of the art.
Japanese carpentry and architecture are the product of 1500 years of cumulative knowledge that was passed from teacher to disciple. I don’t know if anywhere else in the world the art of joinery reached such a high level as in Japan. Japanese artisans got influences from China and the Western countries, but they developed their own, unique language of wooden construction.
Building a traditional house starts from understanding the characteristics of wood. Wood is alive even after the tree has been cut. Wood continues to respond to environmental conditions, which has to be taken into account in structures.
Working with wood requires a set of good tools that are constantly maintained. The work area should be clean and orderly, covered with carpeting or tatamis. Japanese carpentry involves lots of physical movement, squatting and bending over. Workers’ clothing must therefore be unrestrictive, allowing free movement of arms and legs.
Traditionally, Japanese buildings were prefabricated in a shop. The parts were numbered and moved to the actual building site for assembling. There are hundreds of different ways to join wood in Japanese carpentry. Some of the joints look really difficult to make and require good three-dimensional perception to understand. One reason for their complexity was that they added prestige to carpentry and in a way protected the trade from outside competition.
Japanese carpenters and builders have demonstrated how beautifully wood can be used for construction. I wish that Western architects and residential contractors could learn from them and start using wood more imaginatively than what they do today.
Here are some books about Japanese woodworking for those interested (affiliate links to Amazon.com):
The Genius of Japanese Carpentry: The Secrets of a Craft
Zen Architecture: The Building Process as Practice
