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What This Japanese Temple Can Teach Us About Sustainability
True sustainability begins with the Japanese craftsmen’s 400 year mentality
I was visiting a temple in Kyoto, a place called Kiyomizu-dera, when I overheard one of the tour guides share with his group, “This building is over 400 years old, but the structure doesn’t use a single nail! Instead it relies on locking wooden joints carefully designed by Japanese architects and craftsmen.”
Over 400 years.
I thought about this experience when I read the news of 432 Park, the newly opened super tower luxury building in NYC that is already coming up against a mélange of architectural problems ranging from leaking, creaking, and swaying, not to mention a frequently broken elevator. The tenants are currently filing a lawsuit against the developers for $125 million in damages.
For how is it that something that was built over 400 years ago without the technology and tools we have today, in wood nonetheless, is standing in strong and sturdy shape, while a building that was built with the best technology and designers that money can buy, is now falling apart at the seams? I doubt that it will actually physically fall, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it became a ghost building filled with empty rooms of used-to be homeowners a few…
