Voluntary Bones is an organisation set up to support victims of the dreadful earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It has been formed by Marc Andrae, one of our Kesurokai craftsmen, who has long been a regular visitor to Japan and has many friends there who are struggling to rebuild their lives.
Full details on his web site www.voluntary-bones.de
At last some video of the European frame going together!
Just some of the roofing timbers are nailed together with nails made on site by our blacksmiths. Nearly all of the frame is held together with wooden pegs that were made as soon as we got to site and dried for several days over the fire in the kitchen. As the timber frame dries it shrinks onto the pegs keeping them really tight in their joints.
This building also took around four hours for the final construction. The walls went together really quickly, but the roof took a little longer as there were a few joints still to cut. As the head carpenter Cornel was quite new to this method of roofing geometry he wanted to see and measure these final joints before the timbers were cut.
A happy memory from the last night of the project when, after successfully completing both buildings, we partied in the light of the barbecue fire in the European building:
The metalwork for the barbecue was made on site by Manne and Gunther our blacksmiths and the horse's head holding it was made by another of our group, German carver Rahel Schroeder who was also assisted for a while by the wood carver from the Japanese group:
Rahel also carved across the front of the building; a European plane one side, a Japanese plane the other and the inscription Schoen ist wenn altes bleibt wo neues entsteht. We had a long discussion about how best to translate that into English and my favourite version, conveying the emotion rather than a literal meaning, is Beauty is keeping with tradition whilst developing new things.
This was a huge task for such a short project which Rahel managed amazingly well. For the main inscription she trained up two others from our group who had come along because their partners were carpenters; Anna-Katharina Krodel, who is a goldsmith, and Lina Gillefalk who is a buildings conservation specialist.
An article about our visit to Japan has just been published in the Japan Times (link here). It is alway a worry that journalists who drop by for a few hours can completely miss the point of an event, but Winnie spent a long time on site chatting to people, did her background research and on the whole it is a lovely article.
Just one point of correction, the nails made by the blacksmiths definitely weren't just for show. They were for parts of the buildings that will stay assembled. Those the Japanese blacksmith were delicately beautiful with a little curl at the top:
They were used to hold together the side panels - photo below left - a row of them just below the feet of the carpenter in the roof and at head height of those on the ground. However they are not visible when finished - photo below right - as a strengthening piece of wood is slotted in front and held in place with wedges:
Yoshida san the blacksmith is in the picture on the right watching Amemiya san with the beautiful hanger he also made to suspend the kettle above the fire. It has a very sweet little mechanism to adjust the height and is for me typical of Japanese understated design aesthetic.
Those nails made by the European blacksmiths were just a s beautiful in their own way, but larger and more robust because they were destined to hold part of the roof together.
They went in the part where the roof splayed out half way down. Some of these pieces were constructed beforehand and others were assembled in situ:
Manne and Gunther, the European blacksmiths, also made a beautiful hanging barbecue and I'll post some pictures of that separately. (After a break to mark some student work - that's what pays the bills! - I am back processing Kesurokai video and currently studying footage of the construction of the European frame. More about that to follow later in the week.)
So, this is what the tea house looked like inside when it was finished:
It has an open area at the front with a hearth and kettle (the Japanese blacksmith made the hook for this and it is very beautiful), and a raised area at the back with tatami mats which were also made on-site and I will post more about them in the future. There is tracking for sliding doors front and back and I guess these will be added later along with the roof, which I think will be made of wooden shingles.
It was made in a similar way to the European building; each piece is cut to shape and each joint is tested individually before it is all finally put together, so the final construction happens amazingly quickly. Here's how it happened with a little additional explanation from the scale model that they used to guide their work. Firstly the base frame was constructed and the rear half boarded out:
Then the three main upright frames were put together; the one in the centre marked in red has a lovely carved frieze, shown below stacked on the ground with the other two. I will post more about the Japanese wood carver later.
The side panels had been made in advance; hand sawn planks nailed to cross-laths using beautiful nails made by the Japanese blacksmith, and they were slotted into rebates cut into the uprights as the main body of the tea house was put together. Here you can see the first upright frame in place and the first side panels being slotted in (In the model the wall closest to the camera has been left out so you can see inside!)
... and here is the final frame at the rear of the building being put into place:
Then the roof is built, starting with three cross-beams that tie the side panels in place. The Japanese are meticulous about keeping the site tidy and in the foreground of this picture you can see one of the carpenters with a lovely wooden rake used for clearing away the wood shavings:
Then the first tier of the roof with two beams front and back, and a frame to hold the central beams:
... and then the top tier of the roof, with a little persuasion(!):
Finally, there were various inside fittings to be done; the long bars that secured the side walls, held in place by wedges, and the fittings to hold the tatami mats and take sliding doors either side:
The completed tea house with Kesurokai organisers Hannes Schnelle and Amemiya san:
The last two weeks have been a fantastic experience but it is also lovely to be home. The heat and humidity was very tiring ... in contrast it is around 12C and raining heavily here in the Peak District today! It feels a long time ago that I was sat on the tatami mats next to the worksite kitchen logging my video and photos:
Over the next few weeks as I start to process all the video and images I have I will continue blogging to gradually fill in the detail to show you the buildings in more detail and of some of the other things we saw and did.
The last week has been a complete whirl, but it was good to have the opportunity to see a little more of Japan than our construction site in the mountains! For the five days after completing the tea house and pavillion we did too many things to mention, but here's a little pictorial taster...
Visiting craftsmen:
Eating fantastic food (and drinking lots of beer):
Sleeping on the coach after staying up late eating and drinking!
Visiting temples with wonderful trees:
In central Tokyo too:
On the subway:
Experiencing the city centre:
I must say a big thank you to Amemiya san, has family and friends, who looked after us so well whilst we were there.
Yesterday we raised both buildings; firstly the Japanese tea house, then the European Pavilion. Our preparations had been good and both went up with amazing speed and few technical problems. Then we had the formal ceremonies for both buildings before finally having a big party to celebrate.
I will post more pictures and video when I can, but we are moving accommodation today and I don't know when I will next have internet access.
Both the Japanese and the European teams started to construct various parts of their buildings today. To start with each section goes together and is taken apart, adjusted and reconstructed several times until each joint is perfect. Then finally the frames are constructed.
Whilst they have been making good progress, there were worries about getting finished tomorrow so the head carpenters stayed on after the end of the day to do a little more work. It was very atmospheric in the forest after dark with so much insect noise and occasional fireworks as it is a day when Japanese people traditionally celebrate their ancestors (I think!)
So, here is the base for the tea house with, on top at the front one of three upright frames that form the main part of the roof:
and here is one side wall from the European pavillion which was the first to be pegged together:
The pegs were made several days ago and have been drying on a rack above the fire in the kitchen; they start slightly oversize and shrink as they dry. The timber frame is green (unseasoned) so it will shrink onto the pegs as it dries and form really tight joints.
The Japanese use wedges to hold their building together, but I assume the principle is the same, or maybe they just tap them further in as they dry ... I'll ask tomorrow.
| Kesurokai unites European and Japanese master craftsmen, increasing cultural understanding by living and working together, sharing skills, food & conversation. |
