Latest News
04.05.2009
Domaine de Boisbuchet – le paysage de l'architecture et du design Inauguration of a traditional Japanese house
On 5 June 2009, we will celebrate the twenty-year existence of the international workshops held in France in collaboration with the Vitra Design Museum. To mark the occasion, we will also be inaugurating a Japanese guesthouse (Kyakuden) from the 19th century and open the first exhibition on vernacular architecture. The day marks as well the opening of Boisbuchet’s park with its pavilion.
The traditional building made of wood, clay, bamboo and straw dates to the year 1883 – the same period when the chateau was constructed at Boisbuchet – and is a gift from the Japan Kominka Research Society, which is dedicated to preserving the traditions of Japanese construction. Originally part of an abandoned estate in the western Japanese prefecture of Shimane, it was dismantled, documented and restored last year and subsequently transported overseas and rebuilt over the past months by a team of Japanese and German experts in the Charente.
Alexander von Vegesack, the initiator of the workshop programme and founding director of the Vitra Design Museum, played a key role in making this unique action possible through the close relationships he has built up with Japanese museums and experts over the years. In addition to Vegesack's own financial contributions and a grant from the Département of Charente, the support of the designer Toshiyuki Kita was especially critical to the realization of the project. One of the most important designers of the last thirty years, Kita has actively cultivated the traditions of Japanese craftsmanship and incorporated them in his own oeuvre.
As the venue for the annual summer workshops with renowned designers, artists and architects for participants from all over the world, the 150-hectare terrain of Domaine de Boisbuchet already contains seven pavilions that were built during the workshops with a variety of media to illustrate the potential of natural materials, alternative technologies and innovative construction methods – including bamboo houses by the Columbian Simón Vélez and a paper building by Shigeru Ban of Japan.
The installation of the traditional guesthouse comes full circle in underscoring Japan's historic importance as a source of inspiration for modern design. With its reduction to simple, precisely applied materials, the openness of the interior and the harmony with nature, the structure embodies the basic principles of classic Japanese architecture as well as classic modern architecture.
On the occasion of the re-construction of the Japanese guesthouse and the twenty-year anniversary of our international cultural work, the Domaine de Boisbuchet has invited the Swiss universities EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Féderale de Lausanne) and ECAL (Ecole cantonale d'art de Lausanne) to present objects from the EPFL’s world-renowned collection of architectural models in rooms of the Boisbuchet chateau that have stood vacant for years. Under the title "Learning from vernacular – apprendre des cultures vernaculaires", the exhibits, shown for the first time in public, demonstrate the theme of sustainability with traditional examples from a range of different cultures.
Thanks to the growing public interest and a subsidy of the Charente Département, Boisbuchet’s park will be opened to the public at the same time - from July 1st until September 30th. Thus visitors will be able to view certain areas of the Domaine de Boisbuchet itself - an integral ensemble of experimental architecture and a landscape park in which nature, culture and agriculture harmoniously complement one another.
If this concept proves to be successful, Boisbuchet will offer a changing programme in future summer seasons as well. A visitor’s reception including a small shop and café have been installed in the Domaine’s old mill on the Vienne river.
The workshop department
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