NHK Japanology Plus Plasterwork

Himeji Castle, a national treasure. Its gleaming white walls contribute to its image as White Heron Castle. The people responsible for its beautiful finish were plasterers. These artisans work entirely by hand. Their impact on Japanese architecture is hard to overstate. With skillful use of a trowel, they create lustrous walls and intricate reliefs. This time, our theme is plasterwork. We explore an industry with a history as long as Japanese architecture itself. Hello and welcome to Japanology Plus. I'm Peter Barrakan. I'm in the city of Yokote in Akita Prefecture in the north of Japan. And this part of the city where I'm standing is famous for its storehouses like the one you see behind me. Today we're going to be concentrating on these, the tools used by plasterers to achieve the white finish on that wall and on much bigger walls that you'll see on castles all over Japan. Plastering may seem a rather humdrum sort of topic, but as we'll see, Japanese craftsmen have made plastering into an art form. Good morning. Thank you very much for making such a long journey. Thank you very much for joining us. Our guest is Takao Kobayashi. He's a third-generation plasterer and a 40-year veteran of the trade. In Japan and in various other places, he has worked on everything from houses to hotels and historic properties. Now based in Masuda, a town in Yokote, Kobayashi continues to explore and share the skills required to make beautiful storehouse walls. This is the main street of the town? Yes, that's right. Some beautiful old houses. You really don't get to see many of these these days. That's true. Actually, this area is legally protected, so it still has lots of buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. What kind of a town was it? From the 19th century on, Masuda was known for silk and tobacco, and it developed into a busy community on the regional highway. I was told that there are a lot of storehouses and that this part of the city is famous for those. I've seen a couple, but not many. Most of these just look like regular houses. Well, there's a lot of snow here in winter, so storehouses were built inside people's homes. Let me show you an example. Step inside. Wow, this house goes all the way back. Good Lord. This is an indoor storehouse. This is a storehouse. Oh, look at that. Wow. Yeah, I mean, I certainly wouldn't have thought that that was a storehouse. I mean, even looking at it, it looks like some special room for ceremonies or something. The atmosphere is very different, isn't it? Although it's inside a normal home, it feels very solemn, almost sacred. That's remarkable. That's amazing. The town's 45 indoor storehouses date from the turn of the 20th century. They have very thick walls, which protect precious household belongings and commercial merchandise from fire and theft. The storehouses were built indoors to avoid the winter snow. Loading and unloading of goods can be done without going outside. But how did plasterers contribute to the construction of these walls? Japanese wooden architecture begins with a frame. Carpenters create the basic shape of the floor, walls and ceiling. The plasterer's job is to finish off the walls with soil or plaster, making them stronger and more beautiful to look at. A plasterer's most important tool is the trowel. There are over a thousand types. They come in different sizes and shapes. Some are appropriate for large areas of wall, while others are designed for small, tricky spaces. This trowel is for corners. There's always a perfect tool for the job. Plastering methods have barely changed for hundreds of years. Plaster is usually made from local soil and lime. It varies in colour and texture. It's giving finished houses a connection to the region they stand in. Kobayashi leads us to the outskirts of town in search of soil to use for plaster. Generally speaking, what are you looking for? The perfect colour. I know it when I see it. This pink, for example, would add a lovely finishing touch to a wall. It's helpful to feel the soil in your hands. It's like this. The surface material is similar to sand. Beneath that, it's quite sticky. We don't want extremely sticky clay, like you'd use for pottery, but we don't want dry sand either. The most important thing is to actually pick it up and be able to judge whether or not it's what you need. So you just come up into the mountains and cart it off? The land belongs to someone, so you can't just help yourself. When I need it, I ask the landowner for permission. I think to the average person this would just look like a pile of rubble. What is the attraction of it, or what in this do you find beautiful? By modern standards, soil is seen as dirty or weak compared to something like concrete. It's true that there are negatives. But I feel soil has one big advantage. If a house whose walls incorporate local soil is part of your everyday life, it makes you so sensitive to beauty. It's not the easiest thing to explain, but I think it's the truth. Let's take a look at the plastering process. So you've got all the various ingredients you're going to use, and all your tools as well. Can you just explain how it all works? Well, here we have straw, cut into long strands. It's a rice straw. That's right. We chop it up until it looks like this. This is one of the materials. Next, we have soil from Shiga Prefecture, and this is sand from a riverbed. We mix the sand and soil together, and then we add water. Next, we add the straw. It helps to bind all the other ingredients together. If you leave it to rest, the soil becomes more viscous. How long would you leave that for? One or two weeks. This is what it looks like after a month. The soil and the straw break down, and the mixture becomes stickier. It's actually fermenting, decomposing. Oh yeah, it's not a very pleasant smell. But it's much easier to work with. This feeling, I never get tired of this feeling. I enjoy picking up soil in the mountains, but this is even better. That's why I love this job. I want to ensure musicians feel the same way about music. And to me, working with these materials and hearing this sound is just the same as playing a song. It's music to my ears, to all of my senses in fact. If I vary the technique, I can change the sound, as it were. I really pay attention to that. Move it at this angle. Try it yourself. Okay. Yes, good. Oh, it's hard. You see, I told you I was going to ruin it. That's how it is at first. But you can get a sense of it. The practice of making walls using soil can be traced back over 12,000 years. The remains of such buildings have been discovered all across the country. They were built with natural materials found close at hand. In the 6th century, Buddhism arrived from China. Along with it came countless innovations including new architectural techniques. For example, white plaster made from lime, seashell ash and plants. And frames for walls made of thin wood or bamboo. In the 16th century, the tea ceremony became widely enjoyed. Plasterers were employed to work on tea rooms and tea houses. This provided many new avenues for expression. They combined different materials and experimented with novel ingredients. Complementing the tea ceremony with brand new colours and textures. Anshoken, a tea house in Kyoto, is at the pinnacle of the craft. It was made using iron-rich soil. So the original yellow colour of the walls is fading gracefully. The colour continues to slowly evolve over the months and years. By the 17th century, plaster was being used on houses. As it is fire-resistant and durable, tradespeople started using it on their homes and storehouses. At that time, decorative designs made using plaster and a trowel became popular. A dragon associated with water offered protection from fire. These lucky gods brought business success. Plasterers created these designs to show off their skills and delight their clients. The diversity of Japanese plasterwork is visible throughout the town of Masuda. I wanted to show you the yellow plasterwork on this house. It's one of my previous projects. Wow, it feels like stone. The colour is completely natural. Why is it so smooth? That's done by hand. First with a trowel, and then the very last step is to polish it with a sheet of velvet. This is obviously an outer wall. But we also make things like this indoors, in places where people often come into contact with the walls. If the surface is smooth, a kimono won't catch on it. That's one of the main aims. And this special care has benefits for the walls themselves. They become much more durable. This is what's known as a fibre wall. Let's take a closer look. Wood chips are visible on the surface. Mixing soil with wood chips or fibres gives walls a unique texture. Another style is used in decorative spaces featuring flowers or hanging scrolls. Sand-coated walls. Coloured sand is applied to an earthen base using a liquid adhesive. There's a reason sand is used in this way. Although the wall is quite dark in colour, you can see it sparkling in the light. I think that's why sand was chosen. The effect is one of brightening and lightening the space. It adds an interesting texture to the darkness. I personally think it's very stylish. Japanese plasterwork has a long history. But in the modern era, the industry is facing difficulties. Evolving lifestyles after the mid-20th century made an impact on architecture. Reinforced concrete structures became more common than traditional wooden houses. And plasterers had to change with the times. Besides plastering walls, they found themselves tiling bathrooms, laying breeze blocks and working with concrete. Japan was westernising and walls were more commonly coated with paint or wallpaper. In 1975, there were around 300,000 plasterers in the country. Today, there are only 30,000. Another issue is that 40% of Japan's remaining plasterers are over 60 years old. In response, some companies are exploring new paths to the future. Hi, I'm Matt Ault and this is PLOS ONE. Now, as you just saw, the business of traditional Japanese plastering is on the decline in modern-day Japan. On today's episode, I'm going to visit a company that specialises not only in plastering, but in training young talent so that this art isn't lost to future generations. Follow me. Hello there. Hello. I was expecting a workshop, but this is like a high-end café or something. The company employs around 50 plasterers. Despite the ageing of the industry, the average age here is just 35 years old. So what made you decide to become a plasterer? I wanted a job that would keep me active, so I did a bit of research and came across plastering. I thought it seemed fun, so I gave it a go. Japan's plastering industry has traditionally been male-dominated, but 20% of this company's employees are women. Their training system doesn't adhere to the conventions of the past. Our training methods are quite innovative. In the past, the norm in the plastering industry was for new employees to spend their first four or five years doing menial tasks. Preparation, tidying and so on. Only after that were they allowed to use a trowel. But at our company, we teach people how to use a trowel right away. That way, they see how engaging it is. Here is one way new employees learn. It's a form of shadowing. In the video, a veteran demonstrates how to plaster a wall. By mimicking what they see, trainees acquire the skills of a master. Matt accepts the challenge. The first step is smoothly picking up the material. Ready? Ready? Wow! If you're struggling, hold the board against the wall. Ah, maybe I'll do that. Like that. Oh, it's not sticking! It just takes practice. How long did it take you to get good at this? It took around a year. People need about a year. Well, this is no joke. I really am this bad at this. Was the training system here a big help to you when you first started doing this? Absolutely. At the start, you don't get too many opportunities to plaster real walls. So being able to practice here is incredibly effective. Young employees have used the skills they learned in training to come up with brand new ideas. This wall has dried leaves embedded in the plaster, while this wall uses lace to create texture. Innovations have opened up new opportunities. This restaurant is a fantastic showcase for modern plaster work. So here's an example of an interior that was created by the craftspeople that we just visited. This is an Australian-themed bar, and as you can see, they've used the traditional techniques to create what looks like clouds on the ceiling. And on the back wall, a scene that's evocative of a beach, with colors and even down to pieces of coral embedded in the material. Almost like a diorama. The really fascinating thing about today is it's not just about preserving old styles. It's about evolving and transforming them for the future and for modern times as well. I guess you can say, old techniques never really go out of style. See you next time. Let's take another look at the indoor storehouse. Oh, we're back here again. It was built in 1903 for a wealthy local client. Of the 45 storehouses in Masada, this is an especially well-preserved and gorgeous example. We've seen all these other kinds of finishes. Somehow, this one really seems the most impressive, though. Plaster was mixed with soot, creating a dark surface with a mysterious glow. Black color has a certain extravagance. It has such depth to it. I believe that's what the creators wanted to represent. It's like outer space. It radiates out into infinity. That's how I see it. And then we have the white lines. They really strengthen the impact of the storehouse. You can see them around the entrance. The white makes the lines stand out. Those lines really bring out the beauty of the storehouse. You can see them right here. They're flawless. The lines are perfectly clean. The plasterer may even have done them with a single finger. I can't be sure. But you can tell that the craftspeople paid incredible attention to detail. And I think that shows their true genius. Their sense of aesthetics was perfect. Look up here. The lines are curved. That's incredibly difficult to do. Really, it is very artistically done. Design sensibility. Precision. There are so many factors. It's the sort of thing you'd expect to see in Europe in a church or something. As an expression of the craftsmanship. The plastering work. It really is quite remarkable. We step inside. This is the interior. Beautiful. There's no way it looks like a storehouse. In fact, storehouses here do have an additional function. They often feature tatami rooms which are used on ceremonial occasions. The white surfaces are plaster work too. See how smooth and shiny the finish is? Again, there's no way that looks like plaster. In here, the beauty comes from the contrast between red and white. It's dim, but I think that creates a profound atmosphere. The red and white bring out the infinite depth of the black. I think that's the reason behind these colours. That's my personal interpretation. People are building houses all the time. Every time you walk anywhere, especially in Tokyo, you'll find there's a house being built. Even if you don't use craftsmanship of this level, I'm sure everybody could afford to have a little accent somewhere that makes use of this culture so that it lives on, rather than dying out. The problem is, these days people are losing their adventurous spirit, their willingness to take on a challenge. Making something should involve a sense of fun, but that's disappearing. I think people are just too preoccupied these days. That's another factor. Even if they can't carry out big projects like this, that little accent you mentioned would surely be possible. It works both ways. Customers have to want that kind of plasterwork. And plasterers have to show them what it's possible to achieve. Next time, we meet Wolfgang Lerger from Austria. In a Japanophiles profile, we learn about life for a foreign taxi driver on the streets of Tokyo.