How long can the natural life of lumber last? A thousand years of cypress has a thousand years of life. When building, the vitality of the building is considered first. “A thousand-year-old tree must be preserved for a thousand years.” The attitude of a palace carpenter who faces a tree and builds a building using it is shown here.
It is the original form of architecture that stands up to the wind and snow, and trees are the life that nature grew up and lived in the mountains for 1000 years and 1500 years. It is the duty of the palace carpenter to utilize that vitality in the building.
“If I didn’t do that, would I be sorry for the tree? Human life is ephemeral. But the tree is great. It has lived for more than 1,200 years. It can be said that the words that Tsunekazu Nishioka, a renovation builder of Horyuji Showa University, said during his lifetime, expresses the perspective of a palace carpenter more accurately than anything else.
Even hinoki cypress, which is 1,300 years old, smells good when it is shaved for about two minutes. It has a unique scent. It is also proof that it is alive. Nishioka said that during the major renovation of Horyuji Showa, when the five-storied pagoda was dismantled, when the tiles were lowered, the tiles that had been lowered by about two inches until now were not returned, but about half of them were raised little by little every day. He says.
“I think God. I’m still alive for a thousand years.”
A line of sight that sees the cypress as a god. That is the perspective of the palace carpenter.
