In this stimulating account of how he found his life work -- the transforming of old farm houses into superlative modern dwellings -- Yoshihiro Takishita writes of an early influence. He saw the house that the late Meredith Weatherby had moved from Okutama and reassembled in Roppongi.
"I was captivated by the massive lustrous central pillar, the high ceiling, and the curved black beams that snaked beneath it, not to mention the breathtakingly impressive living room, as seen from the mezzanine floor."
He was also moved by this early refusal of a major architectural trend -- to tear everything down and start again from scratch. The only advantage of this still-dominant bias is that it is less expensive to destroy than it is to reconstruct. But where others saw only hazard, discomfort and inconvenience in ancient structures built of heavy wooden beams and straw thatch, the young Takishita saw enduring beauty and strength.
In the words of Peter Grilli: "When others were ready to destroy the old farm houses, trashing their proud traditions and exchanging them for the illusory convenience of prefabricated steel and plastic, Takishita stepped forward to rescue them, to preserve their majestic authority, and by dismantling and reconstructing them, to transform them into warm, comfortable and astonishingly beautiful homes."
I know how beautiful they were because I used to live in the Weatherby house -- on the third floor, where the original inhabitants kept their silkworm grubs. Living with wood that had been cut in the Edo Period, comfortable where whole generations had found comfort, daily experiencing space freed from contemporary constraints, I felt that I was living as I should, that I was accommodated by areas that fit me. Daily I had before me the beauty of the living room as seen from above, and the garden beyond, so intimate a part of the house that one could not say where one stopped and the other began.
Never have I lived as satisfactorily as I lived then, and so I am grateful to Takishita for having made this feeling available to all those others who now live in the 50-some homes he has made from "minka," old farm houses that would otherwise have been destroyed but that he transported and reassembled.
In this book he takes the reader on tours through the completed dwellings and also indicates all of the complications and precautions necessary in such an intricate procedure as rescuing a home and all of its associations. As Sachiko Amakasu writes: "It takes a special gift to see the true value of what appears as junk to the ordinary eye. Takishita has an instinctive ability to see through layers of dirt and rubbish -- the accumulated grime of years of daily living -- down to the essential beauty of the underlying form."
He is almost alone in his endeavors. What finally happened to the Weatherby house is as instructive as it is melancholy. Taken over, it passed from hand to hand, not as a splendid dwelling, but as a mere property, rapidly increasing in price. And it was not the noble house that determined its increase in value, but merely the land it was built upon -- a hot Roppongi property.
When the price had risen to a respectably absurd sum the land was finally sold and then, since the house stood in the way of the profit, it was knocked down and the garden razed. The land is now an asphalted parking lot, waiting in this larval-like state until certain tax laws are satisfied and the plot can then be put to some use more befitting contemporary Roppongi.
At the same time, lonely though they may be, Takishita's endeavors are more laudable and more valuable than those of the venal builders now spotting the local landscape. His homes, few though they be, stand as a continuation of tradition, attesting to architectural excellence, well-being, and a more natural way of living.
And in this book he tells us his story and gives us, as it were, his recipes for preserving and resuscitating, for infusing the valuable old with contemporary life. His work is not only interesting and stimulating -- it is inspiring.
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