El camino del maestro carpintero

by William H. Coaldrake, Ana Trujillo Denis (Traductora)

Book by Coaldrake, William H.

Genres: Japan

268 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1990

About the author

William H. Coaldrake is Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne, where he was Foundation Professor of Japanese and Head of Japanese Studies from 1992-2007. He was born in Japan of Australian missionary parents, and received his PhD from Harvard University, where he was most recently Edwin O. Reischauer Visiting Professor of Japanese Studies.

Professor Coaldrake is the only non-Japanese member of the Kyoto Guild of Traditional Master Builders (Kyoto dentô kenchiku gijutsu kyôkai), working on the restoration of heritage buildings. He has written two books informed by his experience: The Way of the Carpenter: Tools and Japanese Architecture (Weatherhill, 1990), and Architecture and Authority in Japan (Routledge, 1996). He recently edited his parents’ letters and reports from Japan in the immediate postwar years (Japan from War to Peace: The Coaldrake Records, 1939-1956, RoutledgeCurzon, 2003). He is currently completing a major new book on Japanese art and architecture from earliest times to the present for Phaidon Press.

Reviews

[J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the several books on tradition in Japanese carpentry and design that I've read so far, this one is hands-down the most comprehensive, and perhaps for the reason that it meant to communicate to the Westerner. Coaldrake was a child of missionary parents living in Japan in the Occupation years after the war.

As historian and anthropologist Coaldrake conveys the evolution of the Japanese mindset toward both shelter as well as craft, developing into a discipline unlike anywhere else. There are passages delineating the procedural practices, the apprenticeship and journeyman positions, and the ritual and secret milieu of the Master Carpenter ... Who neither saws nor measures, but inhabits a desk and draws the important parts for his assistants to render into reality, step by cautious step.

There are excellent diagrams, historical images, and on-site photos of the Tradition and its accomplishments; there are also some color plates of the iconic Japanese hand-tools, worn smooth at the edges and full of "the bloom of time" invested by long use and care.

Lots more here than I can cover or survey-- recommended as an all-around introduction to the subject.