Metropolis
When Practice Becomes Form: Carpentry Tools from Japan showcases the invisible structures that underlie traditional building.
The first thing a visitor encounters upon entering
When Practice Becomes Form: Carpentry Tools from Japan at New York City’s Japan Society, is the faint aroma of sawdust. A combination of cypress and cedar, this subtle scent pervades three halls filled with building models, traditional hand tools, and joinery displays, reinforcing the fact that the root of traditional Japanese building is the tree.
Plentiful in that heavily forested archipelago, timber was the material of choice for the everyday architecture of dwellings and shops as well as for sacred spaces such as of temples and shrines, though the show focuses on the design, construction, and preservation of large temple buildings. Everything in this exhibition, from ceiling height models detailing the design of bridges and roofs to an extensive selection of hand saws, chisels, and plane