Alex Kerr - The Beauty of Renovating Traditional Japanese MINKA Houses in Rural Japan

JJ Walsh 0:00

Hi everyone and welcome. This is seek sustainable Japan. I'm JJWalsh based in Hiroshima, Japan. And today, I have the pleasure of talking with one of my all-time most sought out guests for this show, Alex Kerr, thank you so much for joining!

Alex Kerr 0:19

Hi, Joy. Delighted to be here at last.

JJ Walsh 0:23

This is great. When I first started this show, I think you were on my top list, and I couldn't connect somehow. And it just worked out perfectly now that we're both going to be at this Minka Summit, coming up in Kyoto in April, and you're the keynote speaker, and you are the only speaker that I haven't talked to in the series. So I thought I have to try, I have to try to talk to you. I'm so excited to talk about remodeling old houses. You are Japan's expert, and longest running success story of remodeling traditional houses in a way that is so sustainable. So I'm so excited to talk to you. Thanks so much.

Alex Kerr 1:09

Well, it's good to talk to you. And I'm glad you brought up this Kominka Summit. Because I think it's going to be extraordinary. I think it might be a bit of a turning point in this story

JJ Walsh 1:21

I think so, apparently they have sold a bunch of tickets the first night. The dinner on the first night is sold out. But there's still a lot of things that people can can go to there's like workshops, and carpenters walking through old Minka and some Minka for sale. It's going to be really great.

Alex Kerr 1:43

Yeah, so you can buy a Minka while you're waiting for my talk.

JJ Walsh 1:46

Right? Wouldn't that be fun? Now, I was listening to some of your talks reviewing again today. And I love this idea that you use about MITATE. And I think MITATE has so many great connections to reusing old houses. Can you give us a bit of an idea of what is MITATE? Where does it come from?

Alex Kerr 2:08

Oh, well, I think it began in tea ceremony. Or at least it has a tea ceremony use. And it means taking something and using it in a completely different way. So they would take a Korean rice bowl and use it as a table. Or they would use a roof tile and use it as a plate, something like that. And so that that was the origin of it. And then in, for example, in Japanese painting or prints they would do they would say they would say it's a meet top day of Kabuki actors as waterfalls or something like that. I mean, they could be quite weird.

But my concept of MITATE is that, you know, these houses that were restoring were farmhouses, mostly. Except, of course, in Kyoto, they were shophouses MACHIYA. But either way, you know, they were for craftsmen, or wholesalers, people like that in the cities, or they were for farmers.

Well, what we're doing is for travelers, restaurants, boutiques, you know, contemporary artists, studios, all kinds of other uses. So that's why I call it MITATE. And it's not just the houses, that there's a MITATE going on, but the countryside itself. Japan's countryside, sadly, doesn't function anymore≠ it's in deep trouble. People are aging, the villages are emptying. And so what do you do? Well, you're gonna have to revive it with a new completely new content– in a sense.

The village is still there, but something new will be going on. And so that's.. MITATE has a has a pretty broad significance.. food too. Yeah, you're taking local ingredients. Yeah, certain kinds of fish or vegetables that would you would have been used in traditional cooking. And then you're coming up with something brand new to do with it.

JJ Walsh 4:06

You talk about those three parts, the MITATE in terms of remodeling old houses, and food, culture, and bringing new ways to enjoy food in a way that's appealing for visitors maybe, and arts and crafts, and you talk about Iya valley where we will talk about a lot today because that's your, your first love and the magical place that you found in Japan. And then you have other projects around Japan that you've helped get started, which have brought young people back to live there, educate to train and learn new skills and to want to stay there. So there's that social support aspect of sustainability which is so big in all of your projects, right?

Alex Kerr 5:01

Absolutely. I always say that what I'm trying to do, yes, we're doing houses. But it's the houses are a means to something a bit broader. And it's really the revitalization of the countryside that we're aiming for.

JJ Walsh 5:17

I, let's talk about the design of the house. So when you first found CHIIORI in the IYA valley, you were a student in Tokyo, and you're just traveling, is that right?

Alex Kerr 5:33

a student in Tokyo, this was: 1971

JJ Walsh 6:31

Yeah, amazing. And you you often say there is no houses, anywhere around Japan, that are quite like these houses, the thatched roofs. It's really unusual to find these types of houses now in Japan, and they have a very long history. In that IYA Valley area, you say back to the Jomon. Period, is that right?

Alex Kerr 6:57

Well, thatched houses are everywhere in Japan, but thatched houses like this are not. And the reason was it that ever since St. Francis Xavier, whoever it was brought tobacco from the New World. Iya was the tobacco producing region. Something about that misty air, I don't know what it was good for tobacco. But they used to dry it inside the houses over the IRORI hearth. And so the tobacco was hanging. When I got that it was still people that live that way.

This is what CHIIORI looked like when I first found it. And those bits of rice straw rope that you see over your head are where they hung bamboo railings, from which they hung the tobacco. And so that meant, and this is where, what makes it different. They never put in ceilings. They're wide open cathedral like spaces, high, you know, towering interiors. So even though you get much bigger houses, for example, in SHIROKAWA were there, you know, three and four stories. But because each story has a ceiling in it, you never get that enormity that huge sense of space. And so that's really different.

Plus, the other thing is they went on using the IRORI– those floor hearths- and if you're using IRORI, you don't do TATAMI, right, because one spark and you'd go up in flames. They kept the old wooden floors. So these shiny wooden floors, and the IRORI. And that and that created of course, the smoke from the IRORI darkened, everything turned the whole thing black, inside that mysterious mood of IYA. You just don't find anywhere else.

JJ Walsh 8:46

And it's a very special view from all the houses that you've remodeled there. It's looking up, I think I have a picture. It's like a hamlet, it must be very difficult to get there. But once you're inside the house, looking out, what an amazing view at any of these places, right?

Alex Kerr 9:06

Well, I mean, that's what I fell in love with IYA, to begin with, was not actually the houses it was this landscape. And it really is more almost like a legendary Chinese landscape or a Japanese ink painting or something. It doesn't look like Japan, normal Japan, because the mountains are so steep. And people this is what's there you are this you won't see anywhere else because people live on the mountain side, which they don't in Japan.

People live in the valleys or on the plains, and the mountains are basically green. And that might be where you'd find a temple or a shrine. Right gods live on the mountains, but not people. And so IYA is unique in that respect, because there are no planes there is nowhere to live in the Valley. It's sort of a grand canyon down there and So people had to live up on the high slopes.

JJ Walsh: 10:04

And you said you would walk up into the Hamlet's with your dog, when you were exploring. There were no roads up there years ago, right?

Alex Kerr: 10:14

No, well, when I found CHIIORI, there was no road. It was an hour's walk up the hillside, there was one road that went along the river. But otherwise you walked.

JJ Walsh: 10:24

Now, you've spent a lot of time there before you decided to buy a house and spend time remodeling. This is something people who move from the city out to the countryside always say is before you buy something, you need to spend time there make sure that is the community that you want to live in. Right? Did you find that before? You all of your projects like to get to know the area before you decide to do a project there?

Alex Kerr: 10:52

Well, that's a part of it. But you know, here's something I would say I'd say almost any place in Japan's countryside, if you can find a house, and if it's relatively unspoiled, the people are going to be lovely. And you will enjoy it. I'm not so worried about am I going to like this village, because I always like the village. And it just so happened that in IYA because it was so remote. And they had never seen any I mean, not only foreigners, but Japanese from outside didn't come in. And so in a sense, they had no resistance. People were just wide open. To the to somebody coming in.

JJ Walsh: 11:33

You said there was a word that was used for foreigners from outside Japan, as well as for people from Tokyo is the same word, right?

Alex Kerr: 11:42

Well, yeah, because they used to think of themselves because they live up on these hillsides, as KAMI meaning above, and everybody else as SHIMO Shimo-no-hito as down below, people from below. And so whether it was me from the States, or whether it was some Japanese from Tokyo, they were all Shimo-no-hito.

JJ Walsh: 12:04

That's so interesting, isn't it? Okay, let's, let's talk a little bit about how you rebuilt it. Because I think your perspective on rebuilding these houses, to be used not to be museum pieces just to be looked at, and people take photos and go away your whole process. Your whole aim was to make something people want to be comfortable and enjoy being in, right. So you really went to some pains to keep the historical aesthetic, but to make it comfortable. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Alex Kerr: 12:42

Yes. And you know, in Japan, people say, where did you come up with this strange and unusual idea. But of course, it's not. It's Europe, and certain parts of America have been doing this for 100 years. So you can go to Tuscany, or Provence, or Santa Fe or whatever, and find these old houses are Shenandoah, you know, all over with that have been fixed up and made comfortable. Japan didn't do that.

There was this dichotomy and people have the idea that either you kept the old house, and you went back to the Edo period and lived in total misery and the dark and the dirt and the horrible toilet and all that, or you tore it down. And you were modern. Right, there was no middle ground.

And what I said is, wait a minute, it's been done all over Europe, and in other places, in Bali and lots of places. Why can't Japan do this? And so that's what we tried to do. And we got we tried to get away from this idea that restoration means showpiece. And with lots of rules and regulations and you can never so much as changes one plug, you know?

No, it's MITATE Yes, the old house is wonderful, and we want to preserve what's great about it, but we're pulling it into the modern age. And so I'm not trying to show as restoration often tries to do in Japan. This is how it was in Meiji. This is how it was in Edo. I wanted to make it now the house of now. We use techniques and materials that are traditional, because they're part of what's valuable about the region and have an ecological importance to but we're not going back in time.

JJ Walsh: 14:27

I love how you use you do use a lot of traditional artisans like to use the thatch roofer. You needed a special skilled technician to do that. Right. Was it hard to find some people to do it in the traditional styles?

Alex Kerr: 14:45

It's getting harder. There used to be a Thatcher right there in IYA, now our thatcher comes from Gifu but but they do exist. And there is a demand for thatched houses all over Japan– thatching is hugely decreased from what it used to be. But there are still 1000s of these houses. And so, so it does continue. And of course, the more you restore and the more you thatch, the easier it is to carry this tradition on. Yeah, so I'm also trying to support thatchers in other areas. There's a wonderful guy in ARIMA just north of Kobe, where it turns out there are hundreds of thatched houses up there. Wow, great. And he's doing some really unique work. So so this is something that all over Japan, I try to keep up with, cause I'm a thatch fanatic.

JJ Walsh: 15:43

Well, it's interesting when you were talking about first thatching your roof, you were reusing old thatch?

Alex Kerr: 15:52

Well, yeah, we were to poor to actually cut any fresh thatch. So we got thatch from an old house that was being torn down that was full of soot. And so you know, we look like coal miners or something. There it is. Yes. And that only lasted though, because it was old thatch and half rotten already. That only lasted five or six years. And then we had to properly rethatch the whole thing.

JJ Walsh: 16:15

How often do you have to re-thatch? I saw a house that community had done a fundraiser to re-thatch and then they said they have to do it every five years. It really costs.. Not every five years?

Alex Kerr: 16:29

Well, it depends on how you maintain the house. And in the old days, when they were burning those the floor hearth, and it was being smoked every day, and the smoke dries it out. And also, you know, drives out the snakes and insects and so on. My house had not been thatched in something like 60 years. Now the roof was leaking, but it was still there. A properly maintained house will go at least 20 If you're lucky, up to 40 years, which ironically, is about the same timespan as those tin roofs that you see everywhere that are supposedly more durable.

JJ Walsh: 17:24

You were saying the thatched roof lasts as long as the tin roof.

Alex Kerr: 17:28

Yeah, pretty much. But they have to be properly maintained. Now. The other side of the story, go away, lock it up. Don't air it out. Don't ever burn the harth. Let it just kind of sit there and rot then yes, five years is it'll it'll go over with moss and start and it won't last. But if you look after these houses and air them out, the thatch is incredibly hardy. For one thing, it's really thick. It's practically a meter thick. I mean, this is a serious roof. Tons of roof up there.

JJ Walsh: 18:09

There was a great talk that I had with some people just outside Kyoto, and they're trying to do thatched houses in in that area. And they're bringing in people who know how to do it and teaching the young people how to do it and talking about how in the olden days, it used to be the whole community that would come together and help thatch this house and then a month later, a different house or something. Yeah, that's awesome.

Alex Kerr: 18:36

That's what you're describing sounds a little bit like Miyama, which is a town that has really dedicated itself to thatch, that north of Kyoto and has made quite a success of it. Because one of the things about a thatch that's a little bit non intuitive, is that it seems like it's old fashioned and expensive, and wasteful and non economic. But it actually has huge value not only for tourists, but for artists that want to open studios and so on. And so Miyama has been an economic success, which is something that's a little bit surprising. I think to a lot of Japanese, I think by definition, something like that is is just kind of, you know, fun for aesthetes or something. Whereas actually, in the modern world, it takes on a completely different meaning.

JJ Walsh: 19:29

Yeah, that's so it's so important for sustainability. You have to have profits, you have to have income to support what you're doing. And you talked about getting a lot of there is a lot of government funding to help you do a lot of the projects. But you do also employ people to come and run the business so they young people come into the town. This is all part of the revitalization of these rural communities. to stop them from becoming ghost towns, right?

Alex Kerr: 20:04

Well, it's a new industry. Basically, forestry is in collapse, the agriculture is in big trouble fishing as well. So what's left? Well, sustainable tourism, not big Bus tourism, which is so damaging. But the kind of tourism such as we have in IYA where people spend the night, eat the local food, you know, take their time, they spend more than they would on the big bus.

But basically, we did it, we did a little study of one of these big bus towns, and basically they spend about 35 minutes. And they maybe use the drink dispenser, and buy a Coke. And they might use the toilet and that and they take one Instagram and they go out.

we get in here, we get about: 3000

big bus towns, and you've got: 1000

And the other key thing, and this is something I think about a lot is it's not just about the money. It's about creating a community, a community of people who love IYA and understand IYA and have some concern for it. And and those are the people who have spent the night maybe several nights, done some hiking, maybe visited one of our local people that are there making SOBA or something in that community is precious. And again, you don't find that in the big bus towns. And so this is the kind of thing. This is what I think of as sustainable tourism.

JJ Walsh: 22:36

Definitely, definitely. If the money doesn't stay with locals, and they only have the inconvenience of tourism, there is no sustainable tourism there. Right? You have a great example about the bus-trippers, spending about 630 yen, people who stay at IYA valley cottages you fixed up nine of them 90% occupancy before COVID. Amazing, amazing and most, I think of the biggest surprise for me, and probably you as well is most people who were booking were Japanese.

Alex Kerr: 23:15

Yes. That was actually unexpected, because when I started, I thought it was going to be for foreigners, and the foreigners come. But it turns out there's a huge demand among the Japanese. And remember people that have grown up in Tokyo. I mean, we've had kids come and stay in our houses, and they not only old houses, they've never been on a futon before. They're foreigners.

Which means also with the good side of that is they don't have the allergic reaction that their parents often had. Because for an older generation in Japan, old Japanese life was something they just couldn't wait to get away from. It was uncivilized. And it was also misery making because they remember the days when these houses really were miserable. Their kids have never had that. And so they come out it fresh. They see the beauty with fresh eyes. And because the houses are comfortable, they enjoy it. And so much there are a lot of modern Japanese who are dying to go to faraway places and stay in an old house. They just didn't want to suffer.

JJ Walsh: 24:21

Yeah, I stayed in one place in Hiroshima in a rural area called Aki Takata and they have some young entrepreneurs who are taking these old houses, remodeling them with the beautiful aesthetic but making it comfortable. You do have to light the fire to make the bath. Yeah, it's a modern, beautiful comfortable bath inside. So you have that interesting, a little bit hard work, but it has big payoffs. I love that.

Alex Kerr: 24:50

Yeah, so there is a generation of Japanese who love it. And, and that's been shown all over Japan. So these projects, of course I've done a number of them, but there are other people doing them as well. And they're all over the country now. And they get a regular stream of people.

By the way, another great change, see change has, you know, 20 years ago, if you did this, nobody would ever know about you. Because if you didn't sign on to JTB, or something, there was no access right? Now, all you need is one internet page, one website, and people find out very fast, not to mention the Instagram and the rest of it. And so there's a way to access the clientele that it wasn't before, which means that you can be anywhere you can be on a mountaintop, and you can be on an island, and people will come.

JJ Walsh: 25:45

That's amazing. We have some great comments here, DaveO says Hooray for young Japanese entrepreneurs. Yes, yes.

Alex Kerr: 25:54

Oh, I'll second, that!

JJ Walsh: 25:56

And Antonius says how do these dwellings differ from the AINU houses in the north? I recollect similar hangings of tobacco and the same dark burnt colored interior. Interesting.

Alex Kerr: 26:10

That's very interesting. And I have to admit that I don't know anything about AINU houses in the north. And except just one kind of guess, based on my one visit to AINU, villages in 1971. Which is, is that about exactly 50 years ago, something like that, anyway, is that they were rather small. And so you probably did have the same effect of the darkness and the and the smoke. Whereas in IYA of course, you have this cathedral like sense with these very, very high ceilings. But I could be imagining that it's a 50 year old memory.

JJ Walsh: 26:51

Yeah, I love that about remodeling old houses, that you can keep the bigger inside space. A lot of the more modern houses have much smaller rooms. Yeah.

Alex Kerr: 27:02

Well, you know, there are a lot of myths about Japanese old architecture, and one of them is that the Japanese have always lived in tiny spaces. And that is so not true. These farmhouses are considerable size, and even a lot of the townhouses in the cities. So it's really a post war, modern phenomenon. In fact, while I'm on myths, that my favorite myth of all is this idea. Very popular among contemporary architects. A lot of Japanese have bought into this, that we Japanese have always it's been scrapped and built, we build houses and we temples, we tear them down.

s of: 1000

JJ Walsh: 28:45

That's really important to remember, isn't it? We have another question from Dave-in- Osaka. Thanks for joining. What's the cost of thatching a roof? Good question. A million?

Alex Kerr: 28:56

Ha ha ha, I don't know if I can count that high! It's way more than a million. But again, it depends a lot on how this is done. And whether you can do some of it yourself and where you're cutting the thatch and all of that, but we're looking at a minimum of 5 million and it could be more.

JJ Walsh: 29:17

Wow. Let's talk a little bit about the local people around your area because I love I love going to KAMIKATSU not far from where IYA valley is. I haven't been to IYA yet I have to go and they have a BANCHA there, do you have BANCHA (tea) in IYA as well?

Alex Kerr: 29:37

Absolutely! Well, this photo is BANCHA and our IYA-Bancha I think is the queen of all the bancha there's a thing called AWA-BANCHA- Awa is the old name for Tokushima prefecture, and of course they have it in kamikatsu. But IYA's got a higher altitude and it's a little bit cooler. And it's Misty-er. So the effect of that somehow Oh, and the other thing is that the IYA bancha is more primitive, everything in IYA is more primitive. And so that kind of rustic primitive taste, which is something really it's sort of like you imagine the original tea would have tasted like before they started really refining it for tea ceremony. That's the taste of IYA tea, the IYA Bancha.

JJ Walsh: 30:27

And it's fermented right? So it's, it has that healthy gut bacteria quality as well, right?

Alex Kerr: 30:33

Well no, they don't even ferment it. They just graze it in a big iron pot, and then send it out to dry. And that's that it's almost untreated. If you're really, but it's not green tea, right. It's been sort of braised once. But that's it. It's really basic.

JJ Walsh: 30:55

And you have a really beautiful hard to tofu in this picture here. I want to try that as a vegan vegetarian. That is one of the hurdles for traveling in Japan. I'm glad to know you have great tofu I want to come.

Alex Kerr: 31:10

Oh, it's it's amazing. It's so thick. It's like cheese really. And in fact, one of the MITATE that I do in IYA is a kind of tofu CAPRESE because we slice this tofu and then we put tomato slices and some basil and olive oil. And it is splendid. But you really can't pull it off with normal tofu that's to kind of gooey and falls apart. You need this. Cheese like consistency

JJ Walsh: 31:40

It looks amazing. Look at that (in the picture) carried with a rope. Yes. No plastic to be seen. I love it. I love to see the rope. Natural carrier of tofu. I've never seen that before.

Alex Kerr: 31:55

When I come back from IYA always bring back blocks of it.

JJ Walsh: 32:00

Do they let you bring it back to Thailand?

Alex Kerr: 32:02

Oh, not to Thailand. I meant back to Kyoto.

JJ Walsh: 32:06

Okay. Yeah. Awesome. So let's, let's talk about the style that you're using. Because we talked a little bit about keeping the original floorboards really interesting. I did not realize that floor hardwood floor predates TATAMI in Japan.

Alex Kerr: 32:29

Yeah, people think that Japan is the land of tatami, which was it is now but it was not until really the Edo period. And originally everybody lived on wooden floors. And that's pretty much gone. Except some Zen temples in Kyoto, which where you see an intermediate stage where it's all wood, but there's a kind of a U shaped surrounding area just of TATAMI.

IYA was an air pocket because it was cut off really from the rest of Japan was like a little independent Tibet up there. And they never switched to TATAMI and they went on burning the floor hearths. And so you're seeing here, an ancient Japan. That's really gone and the rest of the country

JJ Walsh: 33:15

It is so beautiful. And you said to keep the floorboard aesthetic, but all the floorboards were taken, carefully taken off. And then underneath you put modern plumbing, heated floors, Wi Fi circuitry, electric cables, that kind of thing, insulation?

Alex Kerr: 33:37

Yeah, oh, yeah. And in fact, in the old days, under through those floors, you could actually feel the wind blowing up through the floors, until we finally got around to fixing it. But in many of the houses the floorboards were in not good enough condition. And so we we still did wooden floors, but but with new wood.

Whereas in my house, the floorboards were still there in a great shape. And so we were able to use them.

JJ Walsh: 34:05

Gorgeous

Alex Kerr: 34:06

But we have whatever we've done, we've not TATAM-afied it, you know, we've kept it as wood, as it always would have been.

JJ Walsh: 34:14

Yeah, beautiful. Now, I heard one of your talks talking about the aesthetic, the broken view of the outside through beams. And I thought that was so interesting. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Alex Kerr: 34:30

Well, you know, the thing that I fell in love with in Japanese houses when I was a boy, a 12 year old boy in Yokohama and we would visit houses of Japanese friends was the you know, there's that word MA in Japanese meaning a space, the play of these ma because they're basically wide open structures without walls.

They're basically just columns and sliding doors, sliding windows. And so the play of those spaces, you can open a door and see something farther and open another door and something beyond that, or close it. The columns create their own kind of regular March of spaces. And that's incredibly satisfying. It's really the magic of Japanese architecture. And that's something that that we that I always try to, not just to preserve, but to kind of bring out or to play with. Because again, we're not trying to restore the house exactly as it had always been. We're trying to do something new. And that's, by the way, a puzzle. So the kind of you could say, the warp and with the vertical part of it is we're trying to preserve what was valuable, whether it was the materials or the MA, and then the weft would be we're trying to make it fun and chic, and, and comfortable. And all those other things that are new. And so reaching that balance is always sensitive. Like that, such as the sunken-floor living rooms that we've done, which were our challenge, how to do it and, and for it to work out, right.

Yeah, you said it's (sunken floor) is so popular, people only spend all their time there. Don't use the rest of the house. I love that. You also did a renovation of a restaurant where this long table and have totally changed the way that this this building was used and such a perfect way for a restaurant. And it has become a gathering place for locals. I love it.

Yes, people like to have wedding events and things like that. The thing about this long table, which is a seven meter long piece of wood that had to be brought in with cranes and things is that it's a sunken kotatsu likes seating under it. So you can you can actually sit comfortably with your legs down. But the space the MA of that space is exactly what that room had always been. So we preserve the room in its original shape. But we did something very new with it.

JJ Walsh: 37:11

Yeah, beautiful. I love that Ori-kotatsu. Is it where you put your legs under? Yeah, yeah, yeah, very comfortable. Wonderful.

Alex Kerr: 37:19

Well, you know, one of the things again, it's people say, Well, what do you do to please the foreigners? And what should you do to attract the Japanese. And my feeling about that is that there's what I call modern people, which is Japanese and the foreigners are who were were reaching out to. And that's pretty universal. We've had not had to do much of anything that is special for the Japanese or something.

For example, most of our houses, whether they there's sometimes it started out with that aren't to do but in other towns started out with Tommy and they still have to Tommy, whether it's Tommy or wood, people don't sit on the floor so much anymore, Japanese don't. So every house will have tables and chairs somewhere. And that's not just for the foreigners, that's for the Japanese as well. They need that. And a lot of our newer houses have beds somewhere. Because again, a lot of people want to sleep in a bed. And so we do that. And that's really a kind of a matter of modern lifestyle. Wherever people are coming from

JJ Walsh: 38:40

People always rave about Japanese toilets recently. And as someone who's lived in Japan for many years. That's always a surprise. Are you sure you're talking about Japanese toilets, but what they mean is the modern Japanese toilet.

Alex Kerr: 38:57

Oh those that practically sing to you as you sit on them? Yeah. Which, which I think my theory about those fancy modern toilets is that their reaction to the horror that came before? And so Japan had such ghastly nasty toilets, finally modernize them, they went to the other extreme and made the toilets into a culture of their own, you know,

JJ Walsh: 39:20

they really are something now but um, you know, like you'll see a public restroom and they'll have a couple Japanese toilets and Western toilets. You don't see many Japanese people or anybody using the Japanese style anymore right?

Alex Kerr: 39:35

For years the Shinkansen always had had both, right. Yeah. And I said why are they doing it? You can see you can see people standing in the aisle waiting for the Western. You'll never see anyone go into Japanese and finally they caught on and realize that

JJ Walsh: 39:51

So all of your houses that you remodel, they all have beautiful Japanese, Western style?

Alex Kerr: 39:57

Western style! Fancy Japanese technology, but western style toilets. I think there's zero interest among our clientele anyway. And in a classic squat toilet, you know.

JJ Walsh: 40:13

Now, since you're doing a lot of these remodel projects quite far away from the towns, is it a difficult thing to have a modern toilet or to have? Do any of them have renewable energy? You talked about modern Windows, which are better insulated using insulation? Is plumbing an issue in these old houses?

Alex Kerr: 40:37

Well, I mean, a lot of the houses we've had to install cesspools and things. Plumbing is an issue. Uh, sadly, most of my houses are not very eco. And it's partly because a lot of them have been done as government projects. And we begged for it, but the funds weren't there. What we have tried to do at least is through good insulation, to keep the heating expenses and things down.

In particular, wanted every house that we do, if at all possible, has double pane glass. And Japan now has again, it's a technological thing, but they're now able to make beautiful double pane glass, big sliding doors and things using wood frames. And beautiful Mmm. And they are incredibly efficient at keeping the heat in or the or the cool in.

Another thing, of course, is that there's proper insulation in the walls and under the floors and in the ceilings and so on. And some of the houses like recently the ones we've done in Nagano have wood burning stoves.

JJ Walsh: 41:45

Yeah, I saw that those are very efficient. Heating. Yeah. Wonderful. We have a comment from Yuko- thanks for joining from Facebook. She said I always loved your work. Alex, big fan, how much do you plan in advance? When renovating when you fiddle with electrical work? Plumbing, modernization restoration of traditional features? Do you absolutely plan it from the beginning? Or are you planning along the way and changing things?

Alex Kerr: 42:15

That's an interesting question. In the old days, it was step by step we did one thing and then we did another IYA was that way Chiiori. Slowly, slowly, we would do one thing to another, my house in Kameoka. Tenmangu is still that way. You know, we did the bedroom, then we did the kitchen, then we did the toilet, then we had to tear down that toilet to build a new toilet. You know, these more large scale projects have been done in one basically one big, what would I call it?

It's sort of one venture. It's all in one, go. And in that case, we we do a lot of planning and and a lot of charts and graphs and things go up and down. And I'll say, you know, for example, I'll say let's, we're going to have this wall of glass here and what that'd be beautiful. And then the architect comes back and says But no, for earthquake purposes, you're going to have to have this part of the wall actually be solid. And and there are all these other issues. Even issues such as where you put the staircase, it can't be too steep, or people will bump their heads or it will be unsafe privacy issues.

By the way, one of the biggest kind of, I won't call it a problem, but it's something we have to keep in mind is that travelers nowadays don't want to just have open rooms that anybody else can walk through. They want their room to be separate, even lockable. And that creates quite a design question. And so they're those kinds of issues. And they do have to eventually all get decided, as one design. And then we're off and running. Now, that said, we've often had situations where because what often happens with these houses is we strip them down, you pull out all the old ceilings and the plywood walls, you lift up the floors, and you might have to redo the roof. And then what do you find, oops, this whole side of the house is rotten. You know? And then then you have to go a little bit back to the drawing board. And there's certain things you find you couldn't do.

JJ Walsh: 44:29

Now, one thing I didn't know which I learned today is use a sliding doors were invented in Japan. This sliding door is a feature of Japanese houses not found anywhere else. I didn't realize

Alex Kerr: 44:43

That is my belief. And I've never read a specialist article on this. But I did my own research on it. And I can't I mean Greece and Rome. No. Ancient China. No. Thailand. No. I don't know where anybody had sliding doors. And it was due to a kind of a perfect storm of things that happened to Japan. And one was that it was all wood architecture. And those houses were very dark, they needed light. And they and unlike Thailand, where you could where the you could, the wind could blow through it, you actually did have a winter and you needed to shut out the elements.

And so they needed a way to have doors, but they worked with wood, you know, with stone architecture or brick architecture, it's not going to happen. But with all wood, it could but it took centuries. I've written about all this in one of my books called 'Another Kyoto'. There's a whole chapter on the centuries that it took to come up with sliding doors. It didn't happen overnight. Once they got it, then they met they mastered it and and it's become the default mode. But it's really is one of Japan's engineering achievements.

JJ Walsh: 46:04

Yeah, and it's it's such it's one of my favorite things about when people restore old houses or renovate old houses so beautifully. I love these kind of Shoji doors that can show you part of the garden a little bit the snow viewing option, or isn't there a moon viewing option where you can pull down the top panel as well, right?

Alex Kerr: 46:28

Oh, they're all types. And there's it's really inventive. TATEKU is that general word that means doors and things that slide Fusuma, whatever, the engineering, I mean, this is an incredible example, the Tokonoma itself, the part to the right, opens into the garden. You know, there's so many ways in which Japan played with the TATEKU.

JJ Walsh: 46:56

Yeah, beautiful

Alex Kerr: 46:57

Including in Meiji. By the way, when they got frosted glass, then they did the most beautiful designs on the frosted glass. And so the many, many ways that Japan has over the years developed these techniques.

JJ Walsh: 47:12

Now, you often do the calligraphy, I've noticed in some of your projects, you have done some beautiful work, which I see here and there. In your remodeled houses. Are you practicing all the time? Or is this just something you pick up now and then

Alex Kerr: 47:32

Practicing is not the right word, I'm not as serious as I should be maybe. It's play. It's my play. And I've loved it again since I was since I was nine years old. I've done this. And it's become a kind of tradition that for the opening of one of these houses, I might do a screen or what the one you just showed it CHIIORI where I wrote it on the on the Shoji doors or will have hanging scrolls with calligraphy. I love to have calligraphy around me. And it's one it's a kind of a trademark of my houses somewhere you'll see a calligraphy and it might not always be mine. Sometimes I'll find old calligraphy. To put on the FUSUMA doors or something.

JJ Walsh: 48:16

Yeah, wonderful. We have another comment. People are really enjoying this talk. Thanks so much, Alex. What is the ballpark figure for renovating a folk-house?

Alex Kerr: 48:30

Yeah, well folk-house I think they mean Minka, this old these old houses. That by the way, is terminology. The the word that that I grew up with and was used until recently was just called Minka. But nowadays, they call them Komika, which means old MINKA. But that's I think what they mean, but this person is means by folk house KOMINKA. And this summit that you and I are going to is I think called the KOMINKA Summit, isn't it?

JJ Walsh: 48:58

The Minka summit, I think,

Alex Kerr: 49:00

Oh, is it Minka? Well, so they're using the classic term, which I'm happy about I like I prefer MINKA. But anyway, Minka or Kominka. It's all the same thing. And here, there's an enormous range, because it depends on what level of comfort you want to bring it to whether you're able to do some of the carpentry yourself, whether you're working with a government agency, in which case you have to work through official contractors and bidding, you know, and all that kind of thing public bidding, or whether you can just do it as a private venture. But we're talking about somewhere between, let's say 5 million yen. A friend of mine just did just fixed up a lovely little one and also depends on the size a little. It was actually a little MACHIYA in Kamioka. And he did most of it himself. He did his own plastering. He got cheap guys to come in and fix the Fusuma and whatever repaper them and so on. Probably the whole thing is cost him about 5 million I would say.

Whereas our projects, which can be, you know, very fancy with all the all the trimmings, because they were government funded. Can you hear me? Yep. Yeah. Have can run up to say 20 million. Yeah, right per house, or even more. And so it's it's highly variable. And by the way, I think there's a bit of a turning point going on, which is what this summit is a little bit about, in my belief is that, for several decades, the mainstream was government funded projects with basically, government grants. And most of my projects were done that way, with some exceptions. And now I think the weight is shifting more to private people that buy these houses and restore them on their own. And that's been very advantageous, because what it means is, there's now a whole new group of people who are carpenters who specialize in KOMINKA. And people that provide the certain kinds of toilets and stoves, and windows, whatever, especially for Kominka.

And KOZAI means. old wood basically beams, these fantastic beams that were in the in the ceiling structure, or sliding doors or whatever. There are people that have big warehouses and have collected these. And so there's now an industry of providing KOZAI for these restoration projects. And so there's this kind of new thing going on. And as a result, I think it's going to be a bit cheaper. There's more variety there. It's getting, I think, a bit easier.

JJ Walsh: 51:52

I talked to a woman in Nagano, who has a Zen retreat, and she just found some old beams that someone was storing that she was able to use to build a new facility. And you talk about that in your book, how you were seeing so many beautiful houses in Kyoto being knocked down, and it was just gut wrenching. And you tried to go and salvage some, but it seems more popular now for people to at least keep those big, beautiful beams for reuse, right?

Alex Kerr: 52:25

Yes, but that said 90% is just all thrown away. That's the reality. And so the people that do value these things and collect them and store them are should be given awards from the government or something their national treasures. And it's wonderful that they do it but it but they're pretty rare. But they do exist. There's a wonderful guy up in Fukushima. There. There's a wonderful, a huge warehouse of these things in Kagawa. You know they exist. But But there should be more.

JJ Walsh: 53:04

Yeah, we have,

Alex Kerr: 53:06

I would, I would love to collect more if I if I could just find the funds to just move it. Some of these things are truly massive. So you need enormous trucks and cranes and so on. And then you need an abandoned school or something to keep it all right and right. Yeah, but once once you've got it, these things can never come again. They're hand hewn. These are like sculptures.

JJ Walsh: 53:31

Yeah. And that Jon Stollenmeyer, who's also going to be at the Minka Summit. When I was talking to him, he was talking about how the old beams have the shape of the trees, which is so rare to find now, right?

Alex Kerr: 53:45

Yes, yeah. Well, that's because, basically, again, we're back to mythmaking. This idea that Sugi is Japan is another myth. And I've actually never seen a house in all my years that was built with Sugi ever. Never happened. What did they use? They use Matsu and Suga, which are two different basically, pines. Suga is a kind of cedar, but it's related to the pines. And they don't grow straight, right? You know, think of pine trees bend a bit. And so what you find in those rafters are these wonderful, sort of almost like giant billows of waves flowing over your head and they very ingeniously fit them together.

JJ Walsh: 54:38

Yeah, it's so beautiful to watch the the traditional joinery without nails right how everything is just fitted so beautifully. Gorgeous.

Alex Kerr: 54:49

It's gorgeous and it's also extremely stable. From a technical point of view, these are These are houses that will stand forever.

JJ Walsh: 55:03

When we bought our old house and had some remodelers in and they said, You were lucky, this is sixty years old. And it's not 30 years old because it was built properly.

Alex Kerr: 55:13

Yes, no that's key. And so basically, the modern houses are pretty flimsy. The older houses will stand until someone tears them down. Or they get abandoned, the worst thing that can happen is, if they're abandoned and not used very shortly, it doesn't take long, the rot will sit in, if I go away from Kameoka for a week, and nobody's there, when I come back, I could smell the mildew. It's that fast. And so there's always so there is always somebody there. I've had these young interns living in the house, if someone just lives there, the house will go on forever. And that's actually the big challenge. Because one of Japan's modern problems is abandoned houses, it's a huge social issue. And there are 10 million of them. Within the next 10 years or so it'll rise to 20 million.

JJ Walsh: 56:15

That's just crazy. Yeah.

Alex Kerr: 56:19

Now, only a fraction of them are beautiful places where it's saving. But even so, it would be really a pity, if what I think of is as the heritage of Japan is lost. And so we're kind of at an urgent moment, when a lot of a huge amount needs to be done to save what's left.

JJ Walsh: 56:39

Yeah, great comment from Tina McCarthy, who is in Australia, she bought a beautiful place in Onomichi that we talked about in this series, she said, first visited Japan in 1985, was obsessed. In the early 90s. I read 'Lost Japan', I was completely hooked and wanted an old house in Japan. That didn't happen until 2019. Was there any one thing that made you feel that this was your destiny?

Alex Kerr: 57:10

I think I felt it from the day I first saw IYA, honestly. I knew this was my place. And when I came back the next year to Keio, I was at Keio officially, but I never went there. I was spent the whole time in IYA and then I met David Kidd, from whom I learned more about these old houses. And then eventually found Chiiori and from there, it was a straight line to today. I don't think I ever looked back. Isn't that odd?! I wasn't thinking about it. I don't think I said to myself, This is destiny. But that's how I felt.

JJ Walsh: 57:52

It just felt right to you.

Alex Kerr: 57:55

It felt right from the day I first saw those mists in rising over the hills in IYA.

JJ Walsh: 58:02

Beautiful. Another great question from BlackTengu on YouTube, Would you recommend purchasing a Kominka for someone who would be in Japan for six months in the year and just using it as a holiday home? That's an interesting idea.

Alex Kerr: 58:17

Well, this is key actually to the future of Kominka development. Because the fact is, most people are not going to live in those Kominka. And holiday homes is six months of the year is ambitious, you'll be lucky if you spend a week there. That's the way holiday homes are. Does that mean you shouldn't do it? No. Do it because you will. That week will be your best week of the year. A but B, what we can then do and we have done with a number of our developments is we then manage it for you. So the house is kept clean, it's aired up having people stay is the equivalent of having the interns you know living in my house and coming okay. It means that people are there. It's not only ventilated, but heated and cooled and the grass is cut and etc. Cleaned. And so the house is kept in good condition and you can make a little money from it.

Not much. So it's not going to be a big money earner. But it won't, it'll help to pay some of the expenses. And that means that when you do go there for you, if it's a little as a week, that's okay, if it's six months, that's even better than the house is cared for. So that's, I would, to me, that's part of the package of restoring these houses. It's not that you restore it and hand it over and goodbye. You restore it and you take responsibility for operating it afterwards, which we've done with all of our projects.

JJ Walsh: 59:43

Yeah, and if you can find local people to help take care of it or you can rent it out on Airbnb when you're not there. And that helps keep a lively atmosphere in the community to not not a ghost town just people using As a BESSO (holiday home) Right?

Alex Kerr: 1:00:01

Exactly. Airbnb is a little problematic, partly because they changed the law in Japan and you can only open it a certain number of months of the year. But the other problem is if you're not there, somebody's got to handle the Airbnb on site. Clean the house, show the guests in deal with the emails and whatever. So Airbnb does all by itself, Airbnb, you can do it, but it doesn't solve the whole problem. But but if you do have somebody on site, then you can do it. And it's one of the ways to do it.

JJ Walsh: 1:00:38

Yeah, well, that is our hour- that went too fast. Alex, we're gonna have to have you on again, we've only talked about Chiiori,

Alex Kerr: 1:00:48

I'd love it!

JJ Walsh: 1:00:49

You have so many other projects around Japan, I was planning on talking about, please join again. And let's talk about some of the other projects too!

Alex Kerr: 1:01:00

Invite me on. And I would love to talk anytime.

JJ Walsh: 1:01:04

That would be great. Thank you so much, everybody for joining. Thank you so much, Alex. Everybody has a great day and sign up to come and meet both of us at April in the Minka summit April 22 to 24th. It's going to be great.

Thanks, Alex. Have a great nite. Bye!