Fox Friday: Japanese Joinery

Japanese architecture is admired around the world for its wood craftsmanship. The intricate ways that wood is put together, along with the exposure of raw wood, combine to form an aesthetic and tectonic language that lends poetic expression to vernacular and modern buildings alike. Foundational to Japanese wood construction are the hundreds of sophisticated wood joints deployed by master carpenters across centuries. This workshop explores methods of crafting Japanese-style wooden joints using modernist architect Seike Kiyoshi’s The Art of Japanese Joinery (first published in 1970) as a guide. Participants will use Japanese carpentry tools to create individual models of one or more of the 48 joints documented by Seike to gain hands-on experience with the art of Japanese joinery and a greater appreciation of wood as a raw material.

Instructor: Michelle Hauk