Domestic Minimalism: The Art Of Japanese Life | Journal

[Music] this is an ordinary Japanese home but every day it produces something [Music] extraordinary I'd like to introduce you to my lunch this is a Bento Box now it's said that in Japan you eat with your eyes it's really really important to appreciate the appearance of what you're about to consume and what's more this Bento Box even carries meaning its theme is Japan's favorite season spring so these little things are cut into the shape of cherry blossoms and there are a number of vegetables including this rape Blossom that only come out in the springtime so

this little bento box is almost like a work of art it's got technique it's got form it's got meaning it's got symbolism and it's almost too beautiful to [Music] eat in Japan much of domestic life is informed by Aesthetics the home itself can be a work of the imagination and many of the activities that take place inside it are performed with precision and [Music] Grace the modern world was thought to have destroyed the ancient Japanese art of life but Beauty still [Music] abounds as artists reinvent these old traditions for a new era but the Japanese

house has also influenced the West it helped create modern architecture as we know it and transformed how many of us live [Music] [Music] today Japan has a population of 127 million people it is one of the most densely inhabited places in the world and the vast majority of people live in Endless cities in small [Music] Flats but it wasn't always like this 100 years ago 85% of Japan's population lived in the countryside and they had done for centuries most of their rural homes are long [Music] gone but a few [Music] remain Miama is one of

Japan's last surviving traditional Villages and these are Minka vernacular houses once lived in by most of Japan's people these Minka might look rustic but they're actually an amazing piece of technology designed to combat the extremes of the Japanese climate the thatched roofs are steep enough to wash away the heavy summer rains and the winter snows and the buildings have been lifted off the ground to create as much ventilation as possible during the hotter and more humid months of the year and Japan's geography even dictated the way they were built built one of the defining features

of this Village and indeed much of Japan's traditional architecture is the abundance of wood it's absolutely everywhere now there are at least two reasons for that the first reason is that wood is plentiful in Japan while Stone which is mostly volcanic here is too hard to build with the second reason and this is a little bit morbid I'm afraid is that on the whole wooden houses are safer yes they're more likely to burn down but they're less likely to crush their occupants in the event of an earthquake and easier to reassemble in its aftermath but

though Japan's traditional house builders took up woodworking for practical reasons they very quickly turned it into an art form in fact Japanese Crafts People pioneered a consumate form of carpentry unequaled in the [Music] west and were able to construct whole houses without screws nails or glue just ingenious [Music] techniques these techniques are still in use today here at Nakamura yoshiaki Workshop in Kyoto Nakamura is one of Japan's most respected sukia Dau or master [Music] Carpenters to become a sukia Dau one must Master a complex code combining ethics and practicalities it's even present in the way

a carpenter uses his tools [Music] for [Music] respect is a Cornerstone of the sukia Dau philosophy and it also applies to materials in Japan word is more than a commodity according to Shinto it comes from a living even sacred organism and has to be treated with reverence against [Music] [Applause] [Music] for [Music] [Music] [Laughter] Nakamura and his Carpenters teach this philosophy to the younger Generations each Apprentice trains for 5 years through often menial tasks they learn the correct attitude and [Music] techniques [Music] in Japan people talk a lot about the spirit of the shokunin the

spirit of the Craftsman or artisan and that spirit is abundantly clear here in Mr nakamura's Workshop the men are working with such precision and focus they are measuring and remeasuring and remeasuring again to get everything just right and perhaps most surprisingly of all they are working in almost total silence there's no chitchat there are no jokes there is unbelievable concentration on the work at hand and I get a real sense here of a difference of a pride in belonging to a grand old tradition of carpentry and house building that goes back way into the Japanese

[Music] past one of Japan's finest surviving homes can be found in Yokohama on the outskirts of [Music] Tokyo this is renun Kaku it was built in 1649 by a samurai Lord called yorin noou Tokugawa the owner's main residence was a fortified Castle filled with armaments but when he wasn't working he'd come here to his fantasy home this was his Refuge a place for contemplation and aesthetic reflection but looking at it today you know what I find most striking about it is its modesty at exactly the same time European r were building these vast Barack palaces

and this by contrast is so humble in fact the only outward sign of extravagance is the Second Story which was almost unheard of in Japan at the time it's clear where this house got its inspiration the low Eaves the wood the way it's raised up from the ground it refers back to the Minka of Japan's rural past refined and [Music] elaborated but the real beauty lies [Music] inside it is influenced by the simple aesthetic of Zen Buddhism and it contains all the ingredients of the traditional Japanese interior [Music] the rooms are open plan and free

from clutter the exterior walls are shoi screens whose paper surfaces Infuse the home with soft otherworldly light the floors are to Tami rice straw mats that dictate the size and proportions of every [Music] room but the most important feature of this house is almost invisible it is a unique Japanese concept known as ma ma is of fundamental importance to Japanese Aesthetics and its way of life it refers to the negative spaces between things the most obvious example of M is silence if I were to pause Midway through this sentence we might find it unsettling but

in Japanese thought that Gap that interval is just as full and just as full of meaning as the words that surround it now M appears in many Japanese art forms it appears in painting and calligraphy in drama and in martial arts but it's also present in Japanese homes and renun Kaku is full of it just look around and your find negative space everywhere renun kaku's floor plan is endlessly [Music] flexible partitions slide behind one another to open up the rooms [Music] even the outside walls are movable the effect is one continuous space and it extends

even to the [Music] outdoors light functional versatile renun Kaku is a lesson in domestic design and houses like it have profoundly influenced modern architecture in the West in the work of Architects and designers like Frank Lloyd Wright Charles and Ray en Walter gropus and Loco buer when modernist Architects and designers first encountered traditional Japanese houses they were astonished as far as they were concerned this was modernist architecture that just happened to be hundreds of years old and of course today open plan living minimalist interiors and clean simple lines have become the very principles of 21st

century living but those principles were pioneered centuries ago in houses like these amid all this minimalism one place in the Japanese home was reserved for extravagance and was dedicated to [Music] decoration it was known as the tokonoma it might look like an empty recess but this Al Cove was once the part of the Japanese home the owner of the property would sit here and was therefore framed by his tokonoma but his tokonoma would also be the stage set for some carefully selected objects the tokonoma would include a scroll often with [Music] calligraphy and it would

be joined by a simple floral arrangement which had to be just so because this was an art form in its own right ik [Music] bner many Japanese people are obsessed with flower arranging because ikibana is not only a hobby but a highly personal form of [Music] [Music] expression a popular art form of domestic life there are over 1,000 ikana schools in Japan today but its Origins lie in religion it started here but shunan choji temple in Kyoto in the 15th century it was the home of a Buddhist monk called sen [Music] ikenobo ikenobo was responsible

for arranging offerings to the Buddha and he was particularly enamored of flowers on the 25th of February 1462 sen ikenobo made a very special flower arrangement it was a complex freestanding construction of about a dozen different flowers in a golden vase and it was replete with symbolism now apparently it caused something of a stir in fact the people of Kyoto flocked to the temple simply in order to get a look at [Music] it we don't know exactly what the flowers looked like but sen ikenobo did leave us some Clues this is is a really quite

special document it's a 5 m long scroll that dates back to the 1480s 1490s now for years it was locked away and hidden away from sight its contents were known as the secret transmissions and were passed only from one master to the next even today no one's entirely sure of its exact meaning but this part of the scroll seems to offer us a glimpse of the very earliest ikana creations they are of course beautiful drawings and they're perfectly preserved but what's so fascinating about them is the text around them reveals how each one of these

Arrangements served a different function and captured a different moment in people's lives so this one on the left is called a farewell flower it's an arrangement you make when you're saying goodbye to a family member or a friend or a colleague and this one on the right is pretty much the opposite it's called a waiting flag hour and it's something you make when you're waiting for a loved one to return and this final Arrangement this was made to celebrate a young person becoming a monk there is still much to be learned from this document but

I think it makes clear that ikana was not simply flower arranging it was a subtle and Elusive medium that was all about expressing the joys and the hardships of life and over 500 years of History practitioners of ikana have attempted to master it this is manabu NoDa he may look like a bank manager but he is one of Japan's most respected ikana Masters students come to ikenobo from around the world to see him work wonders with flowers [Music] [Music] for [Music] for [Music] you [Music] [Applause] this [Music] there are very specific guidelines about looking at

ikibana you position yourself here one to tammat back from the tokonoma and it's very very important that you are face to face with the arrangement you can't be looking at it from the sides anyway once you have your position take a breath compose yourself and then you can begin to look and you have to begin by looking at the very base of the arrangement you're looking specifically at the point at which the plants first emerge from the water now that's a really really important part of ikibana it's known as the mizugiwa the water's edge and

that is the origin of life itself anyway once you've meditated and reflected on that then you begin to raise your head and follow the line of the plants upwards and upwards and upwards until you reach the very top and when you reach the very top take another breath and then you can begin to appreciate the arrangement in its [Music] entirety it consists of three plants Japanese Iris spa and green Maple they've been chosen because of the Season reflecting a specific moment when late spring turns into early summer the composition of this piece is absolutely fantastic

it's all about visual Harmony so there's Harmony between the different colors between the purples and the whites and the greens there's Harmony between straight lines and curves and of course there's also Harmony between positive space and negative space between the flowers and the M that exists between them this is known as a shukka Arrangement now shukka in Japanese means living flower and this Arrangement really does chart the life story of a flower we see how at the beginning it emerges from the ground and shoots upwards it then gets affected and bent by The Elements by

the wind and the rain but it continues its Journey nonetheless so there is a real sense of a life story taking place here and I love this illusion to different stages in life so two of the irises are blooming quite beautifully but another one is still in Bud and in some ways that's even more important because that is about the future that is about hopes for the future you know I never thought I'd say this but it really is quite moving to look at this Arrangement because while on the surface it is all about the

life story of a group of plants it's possible not to reflect on our own lives too the journeys we have to make the hardships we have to endure and of course the transience of life itself who would have thought that a group of flowers could contain so much meaning but kabana is not simply floristry it is a domestic art form full of style and symbolism and it's not alone in the traditional Japanese tokonoma ikana is accompanied by a hanging scroll this often contains another of Japan's great ancient art forms calligraphy or [Music] shodo shoi is

a quiet neighborhood not far from [Music] Kyoto and this is the home of one of the Rising stars of Japanese [Music] calligraphy every day Tomo Ka practices for 3 or 4 hours copying great works by history's Sho [Music] Masters to create each character there's a set order of Strokes a pattern that hasn't changed for [Music] [Music] millennia [Music] [Music] [Music] e [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] for [Music] for [Music] tomaco is best known for her Monumental works of calligraphy and it is captivating to watch her make [Music] them now [Music] for [Music] [Music] for tomoko's painting

reads Shu ha a traditional phrase which describes the stages of mastering a form to learn to break away and finally to transcend this is such a dynamic image it reminds me of a Jackson Pollock or a France Klein and I love the variety of Marks here they these big long swipes that are 3 or 4T long there are spatters and there are paint trails and there are these droplets that seem to explode into a spray and over there there's a huge puddle of ink that hasn't even dried yet it's amazingly exciting to look at but

this isn't simply about the image it's about the action that produces the image this is an art of the body it's about discipline about control about movement calligraphy of course is an ancient art form but in this room and on this paper it couldn't be more [Music] alive today most Japanese homes seem far removed from the country's graceful Traditions everyday life may be ordered and peaceful but it isn't particularly Japanese critics have claimed that people no longer care about preserving their native [Music] traditions here at least in Kyoto there are signs that one of Japan's

everyday art forms is still being embraced the kimono Japan's national costume but these people aren't locals they're mostly Asian tourists who've paid vast sums of money to playact Japan's past over the past Century Japan has had to negotiate a tricky path how to keep its Heritage alive and relevant amidst the Perpetual change of modern life since the 1950s Japan's booming population transformed the way its citizens lived It produced vast sprawling cities across the country most of them formed without any planning to speak of much as we like to valorize the art of the Japanese home

Japan's rapid urbanization in the 20th century has made domestic life extremely challenging in Tokyo more than 6,000 people inhabit every square kilometer and this has led to homes becoming smaller precisely as they become more expensive barely a month goes by without a story appearing in the Press about young Tokyo workers living in apartments that aren't much larger than coffins incredibly the average Japanese home now only lasts for 30 years inheritance taxes so high that it's often cheaper to bulldoze the family home and start [Music] again the Relentless rebuilding of Japan in the post-war years has

produced vast suedes of awful architecture and some really horrible homes but it's also created opportunities there are more Architects per capita in Japan than in any other country in the world and because of relaxed planning regul ulations and severely limited space these Architects have been able to take creative risks that aren't always possible elsewhere and the Humble Home has become the ground zero of experimentation all sharp edges repeated forms and concrete [Music] walls even in the most sleepy neighborhood you'll stumble upon houses that seem to have crash landed from the future or at least from

some postmodernist textbook some have no windows and others no walls but there is method in this map Madness Japanese cities can be aggressively ugly and messy places and modern houses like this one are I think part of a fight against that they're an attempt to make spaces that are beautiful and ordered and peaceful amid the seemingly endless Urban chaos that surrounds [Music] them they are in many respect a return to the ancient lessons of Zen but crossbred with modern minimalism in fact what we might call zenis has become a trademark of Japan's most famous Architects

like tadada Ando toyoo and Kango Kuma they have established zenal ISM as a major national style of architecture and exported it to the Rich and Famous around the world but though zenim malism began with the rich it soon reached everyone else a number of companies began to commercialize the new aesthetic packaging Japanese minimalism for the mass market and the most successful of them all was Muji since 1980 Muji has been turning Zen into an off the peg commodity this High Street Nirvana proved exceptionally successful the company is now worth more than $2 billion and has

nearly 700 stores around the world its famous name is an abbreviation of mujirushi which means no brand yet image is what Muji is all about it shops are decorated like luxury spas pointless appliances are deceptively functional and products have clean lines and plain colors the whole thing seems modern and international but there are nods everywhere to ancient Japanese Esthetics this is a revealing example of the Muji aesthetic a bag of stones now there's nothing fancy about it the stones themselves are perfectly unremarkable and the packaging is almost comically restrained no logo no poetic description just

Stone written in Japanese and then of course underneath in English but though at first this seems like such a simple product it is in fact full of references it Taps into these great old Japanese ideas about the mysteries of nature about modesty and imperfection and of course when you're you arrange these stones in a bowl in your home you are continuing a tradition that goes all the way back to the great Zen Rock Gardens of the past in much of its advertising Muji offers up a Timeless vision of the Land of the Rising Sun it

also offers to bring the beauty of Zen into your home provided you purchase its products many of us think that uji epitomizes the Japanese aesthetic that it's the product of an entire people who miraculously understand that less is more but Muji isn't the real Japan just like Ikea isn't the real Sweden and Laura Ashley isn't the real Britain the real Japan is anything but [Music] Zen it's a place of urban clutter exposed power caes and small messy [Music] homes to understand these homes I've come to an apartment Block in the heart of Tokyo and to

one of the great chroniclers and champions of contemporary Japanese [Music] life like half of all Tokyo dwellers photographer and journalist kichi Suzuki lives in a single person of apartment where one space is used for several different functions living working and sleeping not to mention [Music] storage but kichi is one of the lucky ones it's not uncommon for a family of four to live in a space this size it's a long way from the fantasy adverts of Muji when a lot of Western people in particular think of Japanese homes they they think of tatami mats and

Shi screen and Zen and minimalism what do you think about that conception uh it's kind of embarrassing I think you know it's just because we think a British lifestyle is like a Don ABI or something like that you know so it's not real at all or fake news fake news yeah for over 25 years kichi has been tirelessly documenting the homes of Tokyo's youth until recently no one talks about uh normal people normal life in Tokyo today the average size of an apartment is 60 square m the equivalent of 36 to Tammy mats for example

you know this is a typical Tokyo apartment like you so is this all one apartment yeah it's all one apartment do you remember the person who lived here was it a student or he was a he was a young uh Cartoon manga artist you know whenever I go to those apartments I just told them don't try to clean up I want to see as you live yes I feel like I'm like a Darkside of Tokyo in his seminal 1993 book Tokyo a certain style kichi photographed portraits of a hundred people not by capturing their faces

but their Flats in doing so he documented the lives of ordinary City dwellers who' been largely ignored this is a house of a guy who is a music critic no you go into small paths and there's a really old the Japanese style house really cheap wow look at that oh my gosh so he needs some more shelves doesn't he I know I know shf is already food no so he has to just pile his new CDs all the time no but uh what what's going to happen when he kns like a this one near the

[Music] bottom you talk about empty space there's that word m m ah yeah yeah yeah yeah you didn't see much of it in your travels no no there's no space for M I think no space for space no space for space exactly to traditional critics these have homes epitomized all that was wrong with modern Japanese life we forget that then attitude or philosophy and we lost our classic Aesthetics and everything so it was so negative point of view towards uh Modern Life and I wanted to change that I met a young DJ wanabi he lives

in that 4 and a half room so this is all one room yeah yeah 3 m square that is the the entire floor space of one meter but you know there's a famous thing in Zen that you need only a half tatami to meditate only one t to sleep so more than that is just a luxury koichi's work documents a fascinating Urban phenomen on within the confines of tiny spaces people have found remarkable Freedom plundering Eastern West old and new their Magpie aesthetic has produced a style that both is and isn't Japanese and seems genuinely

Democratic I mean going into rich people's place is not interesting at all know because it's same it's not their lifestyle it's decorators like lifestyle you know or architect's lifestyle because minimalism is to hide your personality so I was I was really into going into you know poor kids apartment so because that shows their lifestyle there's no closet so you see the wall you know you see what they are wearing small places is a representation of uh people's life everyday life I think in the course of my journey I've discovered different types of Japanese home traditional

and modern minimalist and maximalist but in a remote and M mous part of Nagano one architect is building houses like no one else his name is terunobu fujimori fujimi isn't a conventional architect in fact he only started designing buildings in his 40s and he runs his practice if we can call it a practice like few others for years many of his projects were completed not by professionals but by a gaggle of friends including a novelist a sake Brewer a publisher and a priest now it might sound like the start of a bad joke but the

results when they came was spectacular on a small patch of land behind his house is one of his most bizarre [Music] Creations this is the flying Mud booat House oh one of fujimori's Fantastical tea [Music] houses wow so cozy in here yeah yeah [Music] yeah this is great great have a cup of tea yeah H this B is my favorite this is your favorite yeah yeah yeah please I get the I get your favorite oh thank you very [Music] much delicious delicious very strong yeah too strong Fuji Mor's style may be eccentric but it's grounded

in some of Japan's oldest beliefs spirit [Applause] growing up in the countryside fujimori spent his childhood tending the trees in the nearby Forest but the trees provided more than Timber childhood baseball ball and bat one two three oh no when fujimori grew up he didn't become an architect but an eminent architectural historian he might never have built a thing but in 1989 he was asked by the people of his village to design a museum dedicated to an ancient Shinto [Music] shrine inspired by the Region's natural surroundings fujimori wanted to channel Japan's prehistoric past his first

building left most people [Music] baffled [Music] but there was some sympathizers young architects of his generation like toyoo and T Ando commissions weren't forthcoming so fujimori designed a spectacular house for [Music] himself dandelion house was the first in a series of buildings sprouting all manner of plant life leaks grass even trees with these buildings fujimori hoped to bring nature back into Japanese homes [Music] for [Music] but fujimori has created a highrise of his own though it looks like it was dreamed up by leis Carrol or Studio [Music] jibli this is the two High Tea [Music]

House only 2.2 M wide this is a house on a truly human [Music] scale The Guild fed Lantern in the ceiling turns the whole place golden at [Music] Sunset and the window overlooks his beloved Hometown and his first work of [Music] architecture though this building belongs to a great Japanese tradition it Taps into something far more Universal and far more human and I love how personal this building is I love the fact that it was tailored to the size of fujimori's own body I love the fact that he built it with his friends and I

love the fact that as you look out over the various views around it you can see the mountains that he loved so much you can see his family home the plot of land on which he was born though this building is small it encapsulate so much of fujimori's life you know climbing up here and crawling inside was like a return to Childhood it was like a regression to the womb and I think Fuji Mori is reminding us that for all of our talk of houses and apartments and palaces for all of our talk of modernism

and minimalism and for all those aspirations we have about additional bedrooms and onsuite bathrooms that ultimately and originally a home is a place of shelter it's about making a safe haven to call one's [Music] own this Series has explored Japan's rich and complex culture a culture that has been shaped by the outside world but is unlike any other in the process I've seen exceptional works of art from its old masterpieces to its modern installations its tranquil Gardens to its exuberant art forms but in the course of my travels I found art in more than just

artworks I found beauty and Landscapes the seasons in people's homes and above all in their lives one of the things I've noticed here over and over again is the artfulness of people there's a precision and elegance in so much of what they do Japan of course is a complex and challenging place and not all of it is beautiful but it does seem to me to be a culture that has for centuries cared profoundly about detail about getting the little things right and that is why even in the most ordinary places Beauty can usually be [Music]

found