An Architecture Town in the Mountains
Kengo Kuma in Yusuhara
Yusuhara may be the most remote place I’ve been in Japan; it’s definately in contention. It doesn’t feel as remote as Yamaguchi where the single track train would stop at an intersection without a platform, but it is still very hard and far to get to. Whereas Yamaguchi has a population of nearly 200,000 Yusuhara is but 3,600. To get to Yusuhara I had to take a bus from Okayama to Kochi (about 2.5hrs), a train to Susaki (1.5hrs) and finally another bus to Yusuhara (1.5hrs), climbing high into the mountainous valleys of inland Shikoku.
The town is the kind of place that takes with one main street. It has one conveninece store, one grocery store, a cafe, and maybe two restaurants. I never ate at them because the times I went the first was closed after lunch mid afternoon and the second I couldn’t find. But there is a very good reason to visit Yusuhara, the town above the clouds, and that is because there are six Kengo Kuma projects.
I was incredibly excited to find out that I would be able to stay at a hotel designed by Kengo Kuma and it was really the only option. Machi no eki is a community market on the ground floor that has both fresh vegetables and souveniers. On the second and third floors overlooking the market are hotel rooms. By far my most expensive accomodations of the trip, 75 $/night compared to an average of 31 $/night, it was also the most luxurious and hotel like. I forgot that breakfast was included until I was leaving but it looked pretty good.
The building itself gave me a newfound appreciation of Kengo Kuma’s work. I’d been previously critical of his work as only nice facades covering what is otherwise concrete and steel buildings, dissappointed that the appearance of structural wood isn’t actually critical. This remains true, but in the context of Yusuhara, I could see how these facades and the treatment of the buildings was well related to the local conditions.
Some of the buildings were structurally wood, like the Town office which has a wooden facade but also structural columns and beams on the interior of a large attrium. I found it interesting that the wood beams were sagging. This is likely due not only to the weight of being a structural support but also because wood can creep over time under sustained loads (fun fact, concrete also creeps over time). So I could see that these huge glulam beams were sagging. I doubt anyone else were really notice or care but it was a interesting facet to see. It’s also worth pointing out that about half the wood in the building, while structural, is technically unncessary. It looks cool but if one was to optimize the structure, about half of the beams wouldn’t be needed. So this shows how extra wood can enhance a space but at the expense of added weight and cost.
This isn’t the only project to have extra wood for decoration which shouldn’t be a surprise because so much of Kuma’s work is in facade treatment. The Kumo no Ue no Gallery is a wooden bridge shaped art gallery between a hotel (closed for renovations) and an onsen. The architecture follows a concept of, “a building designed after a forest.” Its shape represents a tree with branches and leaves, whose combination makes komorebi (the interplay of sunlights and shades filtered through trees, an untranslatable Japanese sense of beauty). Unfortunately it was cloudy when I visited so I didn’t see it in the best light but it was still fun. Surprisingly, the gallery was empty.
I was really interested in seeing the Gallery but the Community library was what I found really inspiring. The wood is all decorative but the arrangement of space, as a terrace on the interior, was really fun. It was a really relaxing space and I really enjoyed the small touches, from taking shoes off at the entrance, to the reading nooks in the corners. It is right beside an intergrated wellness facility which plays an intermediate role between living at home and at the special nursing home for the elderly. From the exterior, they appear as one facility.
Yusuhara also has a few other interesting tourist attractions. There’s a small town museum and an old wood theater, some preserved old residential buildings, and two shrines. This is enough things to keep busy over two days and I’m really glad that I was able to visit. After seeing so many Tadao Ando projects, it was fun to see a bunch from a different architect, especially one that I’d read so much about in the library but now got to experience — I just wish it were easier to get to.
