Wooden Architecture and its impact on Society

As a country prone to earthquakes, Japan has historically used wood rather than stone as the basic building material with exceptions for places like castles. This architectural choice has the obvious drawback of making fire an ever present problem and its prevention, suppression and regeneration after, an import societal goal.

Since historical times this has made firefighters an important part of the large and crowded cities of Japan. This picture by Hiroshige who was a member of a firefighting family, includes a large fire tower watching over a racetrack in Edo.



Protection of existing wooden structures continues to be a high priority in places like Kyoto where posters like this one at Nanzen-ji try to pass on the message.



My ersatz translation is that Smoky the Bodhisattva prays that you remember, only you can prevent fires in Important Cultural Properties.



Here's a recruiting poster I ran across at a train station showing Sasuke hero and fireman extraordinaire Takeda Toshiro.

Walking around Japan one of the striking things is how the old temples and castles look so new. The reason is that they invariably are, with most having been rebuilt in the last century by the Japanese Government as a part of the country's cultural legacy.

Due to the many fires, earthquakes and civil wars that have plagued Japan over the centuries most all structures have had to be rebuilt multiple times usually based on previous plans, if available. This article has a very good discussion on the Japanese conception of authenticity in comparison to Western architectural principles. One place where I definitely agree with the Japanese idea of regular rebuilding is in software architecture, where in my experience enterprises keep obsolete structures around for too long.

One of the interesting results of this perspective is the idea of razing and rebuilding structures periodically as a spiritual practice, prevalent in both Buddhist and Shinto institutions. After the widespread destruction of Japanese cities from allied bombing in WW II, this viewpoint helped to create a vision of a New Japan that maintains the spirit of the country despite the destruction of the physical manifestation.