Correspondence from Shikoku island in Japan
Miscellaneous reports from a man who was transferred to move from Hiroshima to Takamatsu.
Preface:
One day I discovered that there is an essay which was written by Ukichiro Nakaya; physicist and essayist, "Experiment of Life" in Kobun Nakamura's commentary on his work when I was reading JA “Japan Architect” magazine. Intuitively, I thought it would be interesting, so I immediately ordered the book containing the essay from a used bookstore. The book itself was published in 1940, and the one I received was the 10th printing published in 1945. It used a lot of old typefaces and was a little difficult to read, but the essay itself was very interesting as expected. It was a story about details of the execution based on the scientific hypothesis when Nakaya builds a house when he moves back to Hokkaido from Itoh, and while considering the severe winter in Hokkaido, if he devises a way to build it, it may be possible to create something that is sustainable, yet simple and dignified in a Japanese style.
There are many essays and words written about the house or space in which the artist lives, but the famous one in Kenichi Yoshida's essay "Nagasaki" is also impressive. "The only way to oppose war is to make one's life beautiful and cling to it." Written in 1982. Now in 2023, the importance of this sentence resonates with right now. Also, in modern times, Emiko Inagaki's interview articles and essays are thrilling. It's difficult for me, who has a lot of worldly desires, to make such an extreme shift like her, but living alone this time is convenient for me to try once to see if I can live with less environmental load and less energy, I thought. Therefore, I decided to record these attempts by calling them experiments in living.
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I’m going to write series of essay on following posts.