In the tranquil village of Takedokoro, Niigata prefecture, sits a cluster of traditional Japanese farmhouses. The kominka are aged and elegant, supported by beams of fine-grained and sturdy keyaki, a Japanese elm. But there is something unusual about these houses. They are painted in striking colours, some yellow and others pink, while their interiors are bright and airy. They are the work of Karl Bengs, a German architect with a passion for Japan’s traditional architecture.
“Japan has the best wooden buildings in the world,” says Bengs. He has dismantled and rebuilt 43 houses in the Niigata and Tokyo areas, and even exported entire houses to Germany, Switzerland and Spain. At Takedokoro, Bengs lives in a kominka of his own design, a rose-coloured house where the floor has been lowered 10cm to accommodate his height.
Bengs first visited Japan in 1966, but it was in 1993 while seeking kominka to export that he stumbled upon the village of Takedokoro. He decided to build a home there and was embraced by its residents. “We celebrate festivals together, clean the village and even go for small drives to the seaside,” he says.
As each kominka is taken apart, every piece of wood is numbered and its position jotted down. Hardly any nails hold the structures together, but rather, most beams are locked into one another. This style is maintained when rebuilding the structure, preserving its natural feel, but with a modern and personal touch too. The kominka cost from ¥30 million to ¥40 million.
Japanese homes tend to have poor insulation but Bengs re-assembles his kominka to be energy-efficient. He installs double-glazed windows and heated floors, and even imports thatch and black-slate tiles from Germany.
Many of the kominka are dilapidated and falling apart when Bengs finds them. Yet they only look rotten, he says. He has confidence in the strength of the keyaki beams and the workmanship of the houses’ carpenters. “Keyaki is a strong wood,” says Bengs, “and concrete actually rots faster than wood.” Keyaki is also more flexible than concrete, well able to withstand the violent earthquakes that rock Japan.
But much like Japan’s depopulated rural communities, kominka are facing a crisis. Japanese architects aren’t interested in traditional buildings, says Bengs, while older people are worried that if they renovate their kominka their children might one day tear it down again. The art of building traditional farmhouses is also fading.
“Young carpenters don’t even know how to sharpen a saw,” says Bengs sadly. “Maybe this beautiful art of Japanese architecture will disappear because there aren’t any more carpenters.”
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