Isjah Koppejan

In a machiya the zashiki (or guest room) is the room to receive your guests. The machiya where we live in has a very nice zashiki, which we use as the actual living, and hang out when we have guests. When we met the owner, mister Yoneda, he told us the tokonoma (the alcove) in this zashiki is made of wood from Yakushima. Yakushima has been my dream destination since child hood and in 2009 I was able to visit this magical island with huge cedar trees. Yakushima is inhibited by sea turtles and is the inspiration of the forest…

Cafe bibliotic HELLO! is a to a cafe converted machiya. They opened up the place which shows the wooden structure of the original building nicely.Another original detail is the elevated wooden floor. A good place to have a coffee, some cake and browse through one of the books.   Visit Isjah’s main blog: http://isjah.com/cafe-bibliotic-hello/ 

Yesterday we visited Nijo castle. It dates from 1626 and has a superb garden by the landscape architect and tea master Kobori Enshu.   Visit Isjah’s main blog: http://isjah.com/nijo-castle/

In Kyoto you can see these buckets everywhere. Kyoto is a city of traditions and of keeping traditions as well. One of the traditions is keeping a bucket filled with water outside your house. In case of fire, the whole neighbourhood would gather the buckets to put the fire out. Which makes a lot of sense:  if a fire hit somewhere it would spread rapidly due to the closeness of the wooden structures. To this day, these buckets can still be found in front of houses, temples, etc. Sometimes you’ll spot the bucket next to the fire extinguisher. Visit Isjah’s main…

Staying in a kyo-machiya (an old traditional townhouse) is an unique way to experience Kyoto. These pre-WWII townhouses housed craftsman or merchants. This double function (working & living) is reflected in the lay out of the machiya’s. This means that in the front of the house the goods were displayed or sold, and in the back you’ll find the living and the storage room or workshop. In between you’ll find a small garden and along the side the kitchen. Machiya’s are traditionally made from wood (the columns), earth (the walls) and paper (sliding doors) and therefore involve a lot of different…

The last decade high-rise buildings have been scattered around Kyoto, while eating away whole blocks of machiya’s. Sometimes you’ll find one brave machiya standing strong between these giants. On one block a single machiya stands totally worn and torn, on another block as an elegant survivor. Between 1996-2003 13% of the machiya’s have been destroyed. With a rough but moderate calculation, this means that if this trend continues within 50 years we will have only some preserved machiya’s left. Visit Isjah’s main blog: http://isjah.com/survival-of-the-fittest/

We’ve appeared in The Kyoto Shimbum News, the local newspaper, today.   Visit Isjah’s main blog: http://isjah.com/in-the-news/

Last two weeks the Rakumachirakuya festival is being held throughout Kyoto. Activities ranging from a cooking class to an insight lecture into working with roof tiles are held in kyo-machiya’s to promote machiya culture. Some of the private machiya’s are opened which makes the festival a great way to see behind the otherwise closed doors. One of the workshops I visited was about making roofs. This is an extremely labour-intensive  process, from making the tiles (which is largely made and formed by hand) to placing the tiles on the roof. Not much has changed in the last century, except from the material (now mainly…