The Genius of Japanese Carpentry. Azby Brown

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      From the 1989 edition:

       I wish to express my deep gratitude to Tsunekazu Nishioka for his patience, good humor, advice, and support at all stages of this study and to the Reverend Kōin Takada, abbot of Yakushiji temple, without whose permission this publication would have been impossible. Special thanks go also to the Reverend Joukei Fuchigami, formerly of Yakushiji, for providing information concerning the history of the temple, its sect and founder, as well as Buddhism in general. I am also grateful to Professor Hirotarō Ōta of the University of Tokyo for his advice and criticism of my manuscript and drawings. I am especially indebted to the many carpenters, both at Yakushiji and elsewhere, who have patiently answered innumerable questions concerning terminology and procedures and have treated me so warmly.

      My sincerest gratitude goes also to the many people who have made my long stay in Japan not only possible but enjoyable, particularly Professor Hisao Koyama of the University of Tokyo, who generously gave me permission to pursue this study as part of my graduate work, and without whose encouragement and assistance any extended stay in Japan would have been impossible. Thanks are due also to the many organizations upon whose assistance I have relied, particularly the Japanese Ministry of Education, the Japan Foundation, and the Ikeda Construction Company, and to those who made my first trip to Japan possible, especially Atsushi Moriyasu, who shares a deep interest in this subject and who, five years ago, surely could not have foreseen this tangible end result of a good word placed with the right people at the right time.

      Finally, to Lynne E. Riggs and to everyone at Kodansha International, particularly editors Michael Brase and Shigeyoshi Suzuki and designer Shigeo Katakura, whose selflessness and unflagging energy have buoyed me up through the seas of exhaustion.

      For this revised edition:

       To the above I would like to add my gratitude to Director Yuji Yamazaki and the staff of Uzumasa Films for involving me, even in a small way, in their fantastic film about Nishioka, Oni ni kike [An Artisan’s Legacy: Tsunekazu Nishioka], and for providing the photograph on page 12. Thanks to my colleagues at Kanazawa Institute of Technology for accepting the amount of time I have devoted to this edition, and particularly to Miyako Takeshita, curator at my lab in Tokyo, the KIT Future Design Institute, who assisted in many aspects of research and production. Finally, to Eric Oey, June Chong, Alphone Tea, and the many others at Tuttle for their efforts in seeing this challenging book completed in a form we all can be proud of.