PERSONAL PERSPECTIVES Visiting a trainee English teacher on teaching variations in observances depending on practice recently, I found her encouraging the local or family customs .... The cyclical pupils to write haiku, a Japanese form of rebuilding of the Grand Shrines of Ise every poetry with a very simple structure. Having twenty years is the supreme example of recently returned from a two-year contract in architecture transformed into ritual. Japan, I was able to lend the student a book of Even in contemporary Japan, haiku poetry with the Japanese and English ground-breaking, ridge-raising and versions printed side by side. The pupils were completion ceremonies are still observed in able to copy the characters and to have a brief many building projects. The ground- introduction to a completely different mode of breaking ceremony (jichinsai) begins the writing from that which they were used to. This on-site construction process with rituals episode represents a very small contribution to designed to appease the tutelary gods of the intercultural awareness, and we are huilding site and to pray for the safety of all Multicultural accustomed to these contributions coming concerned in the building operation. and Inter- mainly through the arts and humanities areas of the curriculum. This article will try to show In traditional practice, the chief master disciplinary how teachers of design and technology might carpenter himself frequently officiated at the Aspects of also be able to give a broader perspective to ceremonies, donning the robes of a Shinto both the practical and the intellectual sides of priest and intoning invocations and Design and the subject. blessings ancient in origin. Technology: Coal drake, The Way of the Carpenter, • Religious background an Overview 1990:5 We are used to 'the idea of a close connection of Japanese between the medieval craftsman and the On examining the belief system of the Shinto Carpentry spiritual life of his time. The great cathedrals carpenter, we find a great intensity of feeling represent some of the most advanced towards his materials which comes from the technology of the period. We may imagine the allocation of spiritual value to all living beings. consultations between the bishop, with access The selection of wood for building involves an to the accumulated scientific knowledge of the understanding of the personality of the ancient world preserved in texts, and the chief mountain on which the trees have grown, and mason, relying on knowledge accumulated something of that personality is carried into the Department of Education, from a lifetime's experience. As far as we can buildings that are constructed from those trees. University of Swansea tell, however, there was a separation between Thus trees that grew on the south side of a the lives of these men: one existed in a mountain should form the south side of a Japanese carpentry treats full-time religious life, the other in a secular building, those from the north should face the both tools and wood with a one. In Japanese tradition the carpenter, north. One of the last remaining temple master reverence that may seem a although not a priest, has traditionally been carpenters, Tsunekazu Nishioka, stated: 'To world away from the much more closely associated with the spiritual grasp the personality of a tree, you must workbench in British schools, values ascribed to materials, and to religious converse with that tree. Whenever I fell a tree, as Graham Howells reports ceremony than his European counterpart. before I raise the saw I pray, 'I pledge, as a temple carpenter, that I will do nothing that If we are studying the relationships involved in wiIl extinguish the life of this tree'.' Japanese carpentry therefore, we are immediately taken into the interdisciplinary Within the philosophy of Christianity, with its area of comparative religion and there is an emphasis on the transcendental, the material opportunity here to link with RE teaching. presence of the cathedral or church is simply Coaldrake illustrates the strong connection an expression of human striving to escape the between the Japanese carpenter and religious earthly shackles of original sin; in Shinto the observance: temple expresses the essence of the natural forces that shaped both the materials and the The deep religious meaning of the Way of faith ofthe people. This difference is the Carpenter is reflected in the many accentuated by the development of European solemn ceremonies and rituals that have architecture into stonework, whereas the been performed since ancient times as an Japanese temples remained wooden. The integral part of the building process. Most mason dominated the stone, carving it to his of these ceremonies follow the rites of the will, whereas the Japanese temple carpenter native Shinto religion, but there are wide observed the twists and stresses built into his PUPILS AS MAKERS trees during growth periods of up to 1,000 • Materials and Ecological The Crafts in years, and selected his wood so that the Consequences strengths and weaknesses of related timbers Secondary Schools We have seen how the traditional Japanese cancelled each other out. This 'organic' method carpenter identifies with his material. In the NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON of construction, together with the innate FRIDAY 3RD NOVEMBER 1995 European tradition we find also the use of flexibility of wood and the subtlety of jointing 10.00-4.30 at the Forum Hotel, particular woods for specific purposes, and the systems is, of course, imposed by the Cromwell Road, Kensington, use of either natural or artificially formed londonSW7 geological factors that impose earthquakes on curved trunks and branches in the construction, Fee: £50 with 10% discount (£45) for Japan with tragic frequency. The stone-built for example, of knees in roof-beams and school based delegates (to include European cathedral simply would not survive wooden shipbuilding. The Japanese carpenter lunch, tea and coffee and an advance in Japan without massive strengthening that copy of the National Survey report took this further, with a family growing its own Pupils as Makers - The Crafts in would destroy the aesthetic effect of stone trees from which an individual would cut the Secondary Schools) tracery that we are familiar with. When the wood from which he fashioned his tools. In As part of current research into the role 1923 earthquake hit Tokyo, causing immense this way the craftsman felt that the tool was an and importance of leaming through devastation, the five-storey wooden pagoda of making', the Crafts Council, in intermediary between him and the larger, older the Kaneiji temple, 32 metres high, survived partnership with Roehampton Institute and therefore more venerable trunk that was to London, commissioned a survey of intact. Post-war research into earthquake- be shaped and given a new life as a structural current provision for, altitudes to and resistant structures showed the value of member of a temple. As Prof. Teijiro practice of craft at Key Stages 3 and 4. transferring into modem materials the elasticity Muramatsu of Hosei University puts it. Questionnaires were circulated, via the inherent in the nature and design of the wooden head teacher, to all Design and The Japanese love the beautiful grain of Technology and Art and Design buildings. Departments in secondary schools in unpainted wood, a love which led to the England and Wales. The excellent In the temple complex of Horyuji in the ancient development of delicate carpentry tools and response - over 2,400 departments city of Nara, the carpenters have summarised the skills to handle them. For instance, there completed and returned their their relationship between themselves, their are many kinds of planes, from rough to questionnaires - indicates the strength work and their material: of interest in the current debate and about fine, and each of them [is] individually the importance of practical learning in To form a pagoda is to form wood suited to a particular hardness of wood. general education. 51% of the retumed To form wood is to form a tree questionnaires were completed by Design The wood used for the most important and Technology departments. To form the tree is to form a man load-bearing sections of the temple was (and is, The conference will explore the To form a man is to form the mind in restorations) hinoki, Japanese Cypress or implications of the findings of the survey To form the mind is to understand the Chamaecyparis obtusa. It is an evergreen and the action required at national and craftsman local level to secure resources for conifer native to Japan that grows to a height practical learning through intelligent The master craftsman who errs is unworthy of 40 to 50 metres, with a straight grain that making. Speakers will include Tony Ford, of his trade makes it easy to split. As has been noted above, Director of the Crafts Council; Dr. Rachel hinoki trees may be cut when they have Mason, Survey Director; HMI Peter Jones If we needed any confirmation of the value of and HMI Michaellve. this philosophy, we can find it in the fact that already been growing for 1,000 years, and The conference is being run by the Crafts in Horyuji are some of the oldest wooden some of the components in the Nara buildings Council in partnership with the National buildings in the world, up to 1,200 years old. It have been standing for the same length of time. Society for Education in Art and Design, Hinoki has some interesting qualities: as part of the NSEAD'S annual course is worth noting in passing that in the modem and conference. industrialised world of Japan, a diluted form of One of the most remarkable features of For further details about the carpenter's philosophy is still found.