…and that ideal vision was that Kyoto would once again be
a beautiful wooden city…
Steve Beimel of JapanCraft21 in Kyoto is an inspiration. Several years ago, he considered his ideal, and it was to see Kyoto return to the enchanting wooden city that it was just over half a century ago.
Through his own tenacity and vision, this dream is now on the threshold of becoming a reality, with the first Kyo-machiya townhouses being built in the city for nearly one hundred years.
I was thrilled to be able to talk with Steve about this hugely significant moment in Kyoto’s modern story.
Join me as I chat with Steve about his school, the apprenticeships, and about building brand new machiya in Kyoto.
Kyo-machiya are traditional wooden townhouses in Kyoto.
They are narrow and extend back towards a small garden space, which allows light and air into the house and provides a close connection to nature and the turning seasons.
They are sustainable buildings which are made with wood joinery with no nail fixings,
on stone foundations with bamboo-mud walls.
Cathy: Thank you so much for joining me today. I'd love to talk to you about the machiya townhouse building that you're doing with your foundation in Kyoto.
When I came to the Gion Matsuri last summer, there was a lovely exhibition in one of the department stores of the old black and white photos of Kyoto, showing what the streets used to look like, with the Kyo-machiya lining the streets.
There were pictures of the big festival floats coming down the streets towering above the beautiful, traditional old houses. I'm assuming that that is how Kyoto used to look probably not so very long ago.
When I was walking around Kyoto in the spring, I thought there are still quite a few machiya around, but, clearly, plenty are still being torn down. I think over here in the West, it's difficult to get an accurate perspective on what the situation in Kyoto is at the moment with machiya. Is it a positive story or is it a devastating story?
Steve: Well, I think that it has the potential of being a really positive story, depending on how optimistic we want to be.
Sixty or seventy years ago, there were 100,000 machiya in Kyoto, and there are about 38 to 40,000 left.
Cathy: So, sixty years ago, we're talking post-war?
Steve: Yes, that’s right. I have a book to show you of old Kyoto. It was a completely different city.
Steve shows me a large book filled with beautiful black and white photographs of Kyoto: machiya streets; Nishiki market without a roof and open to the air; etc.
Cathy: Oh, my goodness.
Steve: So, there are still places like this, of course, but everything was like this at that time. I came to Kyoto in 1972, and on my first visit to Kyoto –
Cathy: And it was still like this!
Steve: Yes, pretty much, it was street after street after street of row houses (nagaya).
It was like in this photograph: all of the buildings around there are tiled roof buildings, there are no concrete buildings at all.
Cathy: That's astonishing… It's actually heartbreaking, isn't it?
Steve: Yes. This photo is typical of Kyoto at that time.
Steve indicates another black and white photo of Kyoto.
This, now, would be a tourist bridge, where everyone would be standing taking pictures.
Cathy: But Kyoto is astonishingly beautiful for people like me when we come to visit - but we're seeing a shadow of what it was in the past, then…
Steve: This is Nishiki Market - there's no roof on it, it's just open air.
Cathy: Really? Wow, I didn't know it was ever like that, that's astonishing. And everyone is in kimono as well.
So, it's clear that a heck of a lot has been lost. And with the loss of so many machiya, a lot of community has been lost too?
Steve: Yes, very much so, because the machiya communities, the roji they were called, had very wonderful communities. People were very close and there was a lot of interaction, and a lot of community support. They're like families, and quite a bit of that has gone - there's still some of it left.
And so, what happened was, lots of old buildings were torn down and replaced.
And because of the building restrictions over the past many, many scores of years, people were not allowed to build machiya again.
Cathy: They weren't allowed?
Steve: They could build a house on the premises, but they couldn't have wood on the outside of the house.
The house had to be a certain distance from the street, and it had to be a certain distance from their neighbour. So, by the time it was built, it didn't look like a machiya at all. And this went on for years and years and years.
So, everyone gave up on rebuilding machiya. No one would even think about building a machiya.
However, over the past five years, and with ‘we’ meaning the people who I'm associated with, especially Tomohiro Naito with whom we started our school and who runs a small traditional wood construction company.
He has been working with the City and they have been able to work around the restrictions. And now for the first time in many, many years, a machiya can be built again. It's now legal - but almost no one knows about this!
We thought we were going to be building our machiya four years ago. It's taken the last four years, just to pass through each construction-related department in the city. It took much longer than we expected. The city was actually very encouraging, though we still needed to go through many hoops. But actually because of that and the resulting research that was required to come up to certain standards, we've come up with a better machiya, in that it is significantly stronger for wind and earthquake. Certain things for earthquakes are better than they were before.
Cathy: Because they used to support the structural pillars on stone, didn't they, so that the building could move? Do you do something different now?
Steve: Well, we are building the first machiya here for 100 years. And the only thing that they required us to do was to put concrete first and then our stones above the concrete. So, we have some stones but it does also have concrete underneath it.
However, we're now building a second building, and they didn't require the concrete.
Even as we speak, we haven't finished the first house yet. We have the foundation and all of the wood has been prepared. All the joinery is sitting in Naito’s workshop, and then it just has to be assembled on site so all the joints can be put together. That house does have concrete, but the next house, which will be part of Myōshin-ji, will have no concrete.
And when I say ‘we’ – I am not part of his construction company, he was one of my workshop students. He was a subcontractor with his brother, they subcontracted carpentry work, but he wanted to have his own traditional construction company.
And so, we worked together, assisting him to start this company, and so we're very close. Together we started an NPO training school for carpenters. Though JapanCraft21 is not officially building the house, we are cheerleaders and supporters.
Cathy: That really is amazing. So, is everything inside the new build machiya new or are you resourcing and reusing materials?
Steve: No, nothing is reused, everything is brand new: all the wood, the tatami floors, the stone foundation, it’s all new. And that's very purposeful, because to restore a machiya takes more time and it's much more expensive than building from scratch.
And although restoring old buildings is a wonderful thing to do, we have chosen to support the construction of new machiya. They've been building new machiya in Kyoto for a thousand years, and it's only in the last eighty or ninety years that they haven't been building them. All they could do was restore them.
But now that it's possible to build new, why not continue this thousand-year-old tradition of building new buildings? Building new buildings will stimulate a renewal of traditional building skills and tools. It is the best we can do now and going forward.
Cathy: This is so wonderful!
I was watching an NHK programme about the architect Shigenori Uoya called Preserving Machiya through History, and in it the Kyoto City mayor was lamenting the number of machiya that have been torn down and replaced by condominiums. He was saying he couldn't let that happen and he was glad that this particular machiya - it was the Sowaka Hotel in Gion - he was glad that it had been preserved. Does that mean that Kyoto City are very supportive? I know that they provide subsidies for machiya restoration.
Steve: They are very supportive. I think years ago there was a lot of resistance, and they have gone out of their way to accommodate us because they realise how important it is to preserve the traditional Kyoto houses.
Of course, this is just one machiya. It’s one very small machiya in this very big city, but we're hoping that while this is being built, people will get the idea that this is possible now.
Cathy: It's totally symbolic, isn’t it – it’s such a symbol of machiya regeneration - it's fantastic what you're doing, because it will encourage people, I’m sure.
Steve: Our intention with everything we do in JapanCraft21 is to recognise a problem and find a solution; to find a strategy and work towards it and put something into action. Because we could conceivably just discuss things forever, and never get anything done!
But we're very small, so we have to be very prudent with how we spend our time and our resources.
Five or six years ago, with Naito san - we both wrote down our ideal, what we would like most, and it turned out to be the same - that Kyoto would once again be a beautiful wooden city, so we made it our goal and are working towards it.
Cathy: That's so inspiring!
Steve: At that time we were very, very far from ever materialising the goal. But we very quickly realised that, as much as we want to do this, and as much as we would change the laws if we could (and Naito san was hopeful about that happening) - there were no young carpenters that could do the work.
There were a few machiya carpenters who were elderly people. And so, there could be a few machiya built here and there, but to consider revitalising a city building one machiya after another, that would be very difficult.
And that's why we started the school. We've now trained twelve experienced young carpenters, in advanced joinery in machiya building. We're starting another class at the end of this year.
Cathy: Are any of your students ever picking up something that's generational within their family? Maybe their fathers or grandfathers were involved in this sort of work?
Steve: Several of them are sons of carpenters. One of the requirements for the course is that they are working carpenters to begin with so they are able to learn advanced techniques in a short time.
We have added twelve people to the ranks of master carpenters capable of building machiya. And with a new class, hopefully, starting at the end of this year, we hope to add five more.
And with the updated laws, our first Kyo-machiya house built will be completed by yearend.
Cathy: Where is the location of the first machiya?
Steve: It's right on Marutamachi, a main street located a few blocks north of Nijo station.
Cathy: What you're doing is going to have so much impact! And it’s all because of your vision and your hard work.
Steve: Every month, as much as we can, we're holding an open house for the public, which includes the 100 year old house you visited last year.
Last summer during Gion Matsuri I visited Steve’s beautiful villa for the presentation Generative Tourism: Getting There from Here - with Alex Kerr, Stephen Beimel and Catherine Pawasarat. Please see the YouTube link below.
You didn't get to see much of it that night, but it's an extraordinary house. It's a hundred years old and it's one of the finest examples of Taishō period architecture (1912-1926). This was the golden age of machiya building, some of the finest machiya were built in the Taishō period.
Cathy: It makes me think of that book by Tanazaki, The Makioka Sisters, and how they lived in that elegant villa.
Steve: Yes, it would be just about that time. That story took place in the '30s and this house was built in the 1920s. So yes, they could have been living in a house like that.
So, we take people on an educational tour where we explain the rationale behind the way it was built including all of the different, really magical things about the machiya, and why the building methods make so much sense.
We go into the kitchen, and we see this massive daikoku-bashira column, which is the main structural element for the entire house, around which everything is built.
We explain the structure and the little things, for example, within the zigzag shelves next to the tokonoma alcove called the chigaidana.
Cathy: Oh, they're beautiful, aren’t they!
Steve: I never knew why one of the shelves curls up at the edge, and none of the Japanese people knew either, which surprised me, but it turns out that this is where the calligraphy brushes are kept, and the shelf turns up at the edge, so that the brushes don't roll off!
Cathy: That's wonderful! You see them in really old places - I’m sure I’ve seen something like that at Nijō Castle!
Steve: Yes, and Buddhist temples all over Kyoto. It’s a Shoin style architectural element.
Cathy: And you were talking about the central pillar of the machiya. That takes me back to one of the videos that I was watching where this guy said that the machiya he was restoring was tilting, and so they were lifting the building to straighten it out again.
Steve: I think the video you saw was very authentic, but many of the people who are doing restorations are just doing it cosmetically. They wouldn't straighten the building out, because it's very, very expensive.
Cathy: And you were talking earlier about the joinery – I imagine the walls and the beams all kind of slotting together, like a sort of puzzle.
Steve: Yes, that's it. We begin with a tour of the old house which you visited, and then we are just five minutes to where the new property is. We're trying to do this every month, to show people that building a new machiya is now possible. They are seeing history being made and – they can consider buying a machiya!
You know, a machiya is more expensive than a house built by a modern construction company where everything is pre-cut in a factory and put together with electric nail guns. A house built with joinery is going to be more expensive. However, we estimate that you can build six or seven machiya on what would be a parking lot. And the price will come down significantly because you're building so many similar buildings at the same time.
By building them all at once, saving labour in travel time, purchasing materials in bulk and by doing multiple tasks simultaneously, you can bring the price down as much as 30%.
Cathy: My goodness!
I like to watch videos about the restoration of akiya (Japan’s abandoned houses) too, and time and again, when they go into these Showa era houses, they're very functional with utilitarian windows. And it's difficult to compare that with the beauty of the machiya town house that you're building.
Steve: Yes, the Showa era houses, I think they served a purpose. When they were built, they were less expensive. But you know, a one-hundred-year-old machiya, if it’s maintained, it will be beautiful for a second one hundred years.
There are 150- or 200-year-old machiya in Kyoto which have been kept up and they are exquisite. But it's very difficult to find a still-beautiful house that's thirty or forty years old, and that was built in the fashion of, let's say, the late Showa or early Heisei era. The building quality was not great and the “modern” designs have gone out of style.
Cathy: Could you tell me what your school is called?
Steve: It’s called Shinmachiya Juku. Most people think shin means new, but it actually means heart.
So, it's shin for kokoro. Shinmachiya, and juku of course is school.
Cathy: I'm thinking of the beautiful techniques that go into building a machiya. I’m thinking of the lovely walls: they're built on bamboo lathe frames, and then covered in mud and rice straw, I think?
Steve: Yes. We had an eighteen-month class where we taught modern, young plasterers how to build those walls beginning with a wooden and bamboo frame. And then hemp rope is tied in between some of the bamboo, holding it together, and then you put a layer of mud with a high rice straw content onto that. That dries and it's all crackly.
And then you put another layer with a little bit finer mud consistency, and that will dry, and so there are less cracks in it. And then you put on a finer layer and then an even finer layer. I think there are about six or seven layers. And then the final layer is this very beautiful covering, and the earth itself has a colour. The minerals in the earth have a colour so some of them are beige-ish and some of them are reddish and some are greenish. They're quite beautiful.
Cathy: That's lovely.
I'm thinking also of - I don't know if you make these, and I can't remember what they're called, but they're at the top of lintels, and they’re carved with shapes in them…
Steve: They’re rama transoms.
Cathy: That’s it! That looks a very complex skill to me.
Steve: Yes, there are dozens and dozens of styles: there are some that are made in the Osaka style; there are some that made up in Northern Japan, and there are some that are made out of kumiko, where the wood is put together like a big puzzle. And there are some which is wood that has been carved, and there are some that's wood carved in relief.
That's why each house traditionally had its own style.
Cathy: When you're building your machiya, do you have any kind of Shinto rituals which are performed?
Steve: Yes, there's a Shinto ceremony before everything begins on the property with a Shinto priest. I think it's a kind of purification, purifying the land.
When you see a new house going up, oftentimes you'll see a little bamboo temporary structure, it’s not quite a tent but it’s just a little stand that's there for a few days.
Cathy: That's so interesting.
You sound like you’re a really busy man, Steve. You're overseeing the school and the building of the two machiya. How does that connect with JapanCraft21?
Steve: You know, I'm not directly involved with the teaching at the school, we're basically funding it. I'm involved with some of the marketing for attracting students. It's not easy to find students. In the first couple years, we did really well, but over the last year we couldn't find any students at all.
It's not that there aren't young carpenters out there, it's just very complex. It's easy to be an outsider like myself, and to say, well, we should do this and we should do that. We can speculate about all the reasons why we were having difficulty finding carpenters.
Sometimes it's because we're not well known enough, and people don't know what we're doing.
For example, if you're a carpenter and your son is a carpenter, you might be reluctant to send your son or daughter to a school where you don't know the people, and you don't know what we’re teaching. And even though it’s free of charge, people in these trades tend to be a little conservative, and there's a tendency to be a little bit cautious. The people who know about who we are, they are very happy to join. And there aren't associations of young carpenters that associate with each other or hang out together.
We asked our carpenter students if they would tell their friends and they’d say, we don't have any carpenter friends. They're working independently for small carpentry companies, but there's no interconnection.
It's very difficult to pinpoint a specific reason, but we’ve had difficulty. I don't want to give the impression that people are lining up to go to the school. But the people who did go to the school, got an extraordinary education for free. And so, we are now trying different approaches to attract some attention.
Cathy: I really hope you manage to, because what you're doing is extraordinary.
Steve: Well, you know, we do have twelve carpenters who have graduated, so I feel like we have really made a bit of a dent.
I've learnt so much from this process. The one other thing is that we (meaning our carpentry company) don't need to build the whole machiya building. All they need to do is build the structure, and that's the most difficult part. The flooring and the walls and the finishing could be done by a carpentry company without expertise in joinery.
If our company was required to build the whole house from scratch, we could only build a couple of houses a year, but if we're only building the structure, we could build a dozen houses.
Cathy: Does land often come up? I imagine the land costs are very expensive?
Steve: It depends on the area. Right in the downtown area, because Kyoto's become such a tourist centre in the last few years, the land prices downtown have gone up. But in other parts of the city, they haven't gone up much at all.
Cathy: Really, in those beautiful outskirts of the city?
Steve: Yes. So, you can have the equivalent of machiya, or, in a less dense area, you can have row houses that are machiya with backyards and front yards.
Cathy: I can see why it would be easy to because they're built like puzzles, and you're simply extending, aren't you.
Are you teaching about making the little tsuboniwa traditional machiya gardens?
Steve: Yes. We had a full year class, and we trained five working gardeners in advanced garden building techniques. So, that was successful, and we'd like to do that again.
Cathy: That sounds fantastic because those beautiful little gardens are such a key part of machiya, aren't they.
Steve: There are so many parts to the machiya. There's the foundation building. There are the sliding doors and shoji windows, all the sashimono work [complex wood joints assembled without nails], and the joinery. There are the intricate kōshi lattice frames in front of the building. And then there's the tatami flooring, and the carpentry, and the sheet metal work for the metal fittings. And there's all the mineral coating that has to be done.
Cathy: Are these things that are sourced locally? The colours of the walls that I’ve seen are gorgeous, they look very natural.
Steve: Yes, bengara, for example, is a reddish colour – it’s made from a higher iron mineral content, and that’s a coating. Then there are different kinds of plastering. There's the white plaster. And there are many different kinds of plastering that can be very, very orthodox or it can be a hybrid, which is a little bit less expensive.
Cathy: I stayed at a very old machiya one time, which only had daytime gas fire heating, and at night it was freezing cold!
I understand that historically machiya didn't have any heating or insulation. In your machiya, will you be putting in any modern comforts?
Steve: Yes. We have one building, which was a restoration where we have the office of the construction company. It was an old machiya which was completely gutted and redone, and in the summer it's temperate, and it's warm in the winter. The electrical bills are low, and we use a lot of modern technology.
For example, when one room is heated, it's possible to have a fan system where that warm air can be taken up to another room upstairs. Reusing the heated air in that way and having double panes in the windows gives much better insulation.
It is important to consider the direction the building faces and the location of windows. So, there is a lot that can be done, and we find that with modern air conditioning systems - the Japanese have really wonderful air conditioning and heating systems nowadays – which, when placed in a building which is carefully planned, mean you’re pretty comfortable in the winter.
Cathy: That sounds fantastic!
You've been so wonderful, Steve, thank you so much, it's been absolutely brilliant talking to you!
Steve: Thank you, Cathy!
Website: JapanCraft21: Revitalizing Kyoto Crafts for the 21st Century.
Instagram: @japancraft21
To discover Steve Beimel’s amazing work with Kyoto artisans and his foundation JapanCraft21 check out this podcast: Steve Beimel on the Crafts of Japan.
YouTube: Generative Tourism: Getting There from Here - with Alex Kerr, Stephen Beimel and Catherine Pawasarat.
Sources
Black and white photo of Gion Matsuri c.1903, mydramalist.
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