The project of Tenjin Business Center in Fukuoka is based on the articulation role of the building in a dense urban environment. It aims to nuance the transition between vegetal and mineral thanks to architecture. Waiting for the description of this project in the next bi-monthly, here is the story of the Kurume-Kasuri that inspired the facade design:
The word of “kasuri” is originated from a Malay: “bind” or “tie.”
The feature of kasuri-textile is a technique to twine and dye vertical threads and horizontal ones together so as to weave up a design. We can see it all over the world. The technique is conveyed pervasively from India, the originated place, to Persia and South Europe, from China and Southeast Asia to Ryukyu. The representative types of kasuri made in Japan are Hingo-kasuri in Hiroshima, Iyo-kasuri in Ehime, and Kurume-kasuri in Fukuoka.Kurume-kasuri wasn’t conveyed from the continent, but born from the daily life – people worked their loom and wove clothes for their family, which has developed as kasuri with their creativities.
A Girl’s Curiosity – a Clue of the Origin of Kasuri
The girl is Inoue Den, a prominent interweaver and a daughter of a farming family. She was twelve or thirteen years old. One day, she noticed dots which appeared on her cloth. Then, she released the threads of the cloth and examined the structure of the fabric.
As a result of her consideration on the dots, she found a way to dye threads after twining and protecting them from coloring.
The textile Den Woved the first time is a design called“Hakumonsanran,” spreading white dots over a piece of fabric. It was called “Yukihuri” or “Arareori,” identified with the snow, and was very popular among people. Later on, a lot of people worked on it and created the ways to weave up other elaborate designs and machines to produce them efficiently.
Nowadays, Kurume-kasuri has evolved as a representative fabric of Fukuoka and Japan.
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