Katsuhiko Mizuno

Diane Durston, the Portland Japanese Garden’s Curator of Arts, Culture, and Education, will lecture at the International House of Japan in Tokyo on October 28. Diane’s topic is “Bringing Old Kyoto Home,” a journey through her experience with historic preservation in Japan’s ancient capital city, as well as the strides she has made in educating U.S. audiences about traditional Japanese arts and culture. An 18-year resident of Kyoto, Diane has authored several guidebooks and articles appearing in Japan: The Cycle of Life, the Japan Craft Sourcebook, and the Encyclopedia of Japan.

“Efforts at historic preservation have been undertaken by the Japanese government, but most of the legislation that exists has been directed at monumental structures—at the castles, temples, shrines, and villas that still grace the landscape. For most historical cities of the world, historic preservation is a costly and painstaking endeavor. Kyoto, a city once built entirely of wood, has its hands full now with the restoration and maintenance of over two thousand wooden temples, shrines, and villas.

Because Kyoto was spared the bombings of World War II, however, the preservation not only of temples and shrines but of the traditional cityscape itself has taken on special historic significance. The wooden dwellings that remain in Kyoto are nearly all that is left of pre-war urban Japan.

…In fact, so much has already been destroyed that the traditional image of Kyoto that tourists, both at home and abroad, have been led to expect is rapidly becoming more legend than reality.

If the preservationists were motivated simply by a nostalgic desire to cling to a past that seems more romantic in retrospect than it ever really was, developers could easily dismiss their attempts as sentimental and old-fashioned. More important than sentiment, however, is the principle of ensuring that the way of life to which these old neighborhoods gave shelter—the cooperation, the safety, the sense of pride—does not disappear with each old wooden house that ends in a pile of dust.”

— Diane Durston, from Kyoto: Seven Paths to the Heart of the City

Links:

• Durston’s profile at the Portland Japanese Garden
• Reservations for Durston’s Talk