Some things are best left alone...
Right, so first off, let me say that generally speaking, Japan is pretty good about keeping its national treasures in tact, and restoring them in a good way. I mean you're looking at a country that has something like 13 designated World Herritage sites in an area 1/33 the size of Canada.
Beautiful temples are restored using a craftsmanship that is true to the original designers, and the areas remain with their old beauty. Usually this means keeping the old look, using old materials and the like. One interesting exception is Ise Jingu Shrine in Mie, which was about an hour from where I lived. This is one of the oldest and largest shrines in Japan, and it is destroted every 20 years. Why you ask? Well unlike other places, where the idea is to preserve the old look and prove it is a piece of history, the beautiful concept at Ise is that if it looks old, it isn't the same as when people looked at it 1000 years ago. True enough. So every 20 years they tear down the buildings, and using the same materials, and the same design plans, re-build in a symbol of new life, and the preservation of what it was. Looking on the shrine's walls, you see it exactly as people saw it 1000 years ago, with the same colouring, the same smell, the same everything.
Both these concepts (preserving the sense of history, or preserving the visual aspect that it was) are interesting, and I applaud both.
Neither of these are really what is at work in my city. We have a grand library here in Kokura. It's not ancient, in fact it is 1950s architecture, and was built on the site of an old munitions factory which was the second intended target of the nuclear bomb. Cloudy skies meant the Americans flew down to Nagasaki instead. But it had a beautifully greened copper roof that I adored for my three years here.
They have redone the roof (and points for realizing the tarnished copper roof was beautiful) with horrific green shingling. I don't know if I can study there anymore.
Beautiful temples are restored using a craftsmanship that is true to the original designers, and the areas remain with their old beauty. Usually this means keeping the old look, using old materials and the like. One interesting exception is Ise Jingu Shrine in Mie, which was about an hour from where I lived. This is one of the oldest and largest shrines in Japan, and it is destroted every 20 years. Why you ask? Well unlike other places, where the idea is to preserve the old look and prove it is a piece of history, the beautiful concept at Ise is that if it looks old, it isn't the same as when people looked at it 1000 years ago. True enough. So every 20 years they tear down the buildings, and using the same materials, and the same design plans, re-build in a symbol of new life, and the preservation of what it was. Looking on the shrine's walls, you see it exactly as people saw it 1000 years ago, with the same colouring, the same smell, the same everything.
Both these concepts (preserving the sense of history, or preserving the visual aspect that it was) are interesting, and I applaud both.
Neither of these are really what is at work in my city. We have a grand library here in Kokura. It's not ancient, in fact it is 1950s architecture, and was built on the site of an old munitions factory which was the second intended target of the nuclear bomb. Cloudy skies meant the Americans flew down to Nagasaki instead. But it had a beautifully greened copper roof that I adored for my three years here.
They have redone the roof (and points for realizing the tarnished copper roof was beautiful) with horrific green shingling. I don't know if I can study there anymore.
posted by Akira Sundance at 3:37 PM
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