L’arbre colonne de Kitayama : comment passer d’une ressource matérielle à un paysage culturel ?

Abstract

In Japanese architecture, posts made of cryptomeria wood (Cryptomeria japonica) are used in Kyoto from the 16th century for sukiya style building, in decorative alcoves (tokonoma) and some details of townhouses (machiya). This construction wood, the Kitayama sugi, comes from a village in the Northern mountains of Kyoto which landscape and agroforestry are in the process of being registered as “cultural landscape”. The goal of this research is to survey how the exploitation of a material resource can give birth to a place recognised for the exceptional character of its cultural landscape. This survey is based on a series of interviews conducted between 2014 and 2021 in a forest of Kitayama sugi with a nurseryman and timber trader. He is one of the last guarantors of the transmission of techniques and knowledges, he witnesses the evolution of this silviculture since the end of the 20th century.

Keywords

• Tree
• Column
• Cultural Landscape
• Kyoto
• Kitayama Sugi Cryptomeria Japonica