On a weekday at the end of August, still very hot, some teachers gather at the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum. The program started off with greetings from a curator, Yuji Tanaka. He asks, “How many of you have been here before?” Yet, no one says yes. He then asks, “How about the Edo-Tokyo Museum at Ryogoku?” This time lots of hand shot up. The Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum is a branch of the Edo-Tokyo Museum and is an open air museum preserving actual buildings. Tanaka moves on to explain about the museum.

“We have various restored buildings in different architectural styles from the Edo period to the early Showa era, including the Farmhouse of the Tenmyo Family, the public bathhouse “Kodakara-yu,” the bar “Kagiya” and the House of Kunio Mayekawa. In addition to these exhibits of restored buildings, there are special exhibitions showing the history of the buildings and events, such as letting visitors spend time feeling as if they were in downtown Edo in the evening or enjoying lit up buildings, as well as providing them with hands-on experience guided by traditional craftsmen.”

First, the participants took part in stone-grinding and fire-making at the Farmhouse of the Tenmyo Family, which has a thatched roof. The family is known to have served as village head in the Edo period. This activity is geared toward third graders and volunteers are in charge of instruction. One of them explains, “We are going to stone-grind rice to make rice powder. The stone-grinder consist of 2 parts so please make sure your students don’t get their fingers pinched. Decide who goes first by rock-scissors-paper.” One of the participants says, “It was heavier than I expected.” When they see rice ground into powder, they all exclaimed happily.

Next, they tried to make a fire. One of the volunteers started off asking the participants, “Why do we make a fire? Fire is indispensable in our life. We use it to boil water, to get warmth and light, and even to smoke out bugs living inside the thatched roof. The fire also served as a place where people gathered.” Charcoal called oki, when it gets red, is taken out of the irori fireplace and placed in a brazier in the next room. When they add more charcoal and blow air into it, it gets hot and red. Surrounding the warm brazier, the teachers start to look relaxed.

After an hour of hands-on activities, the participants tried out architecture gymnastics. It started off with a loud call by Dr. Architecture Gymnastics. Architecture gymnastics is to express architecture by means of your body. We will report on this in detail in the next installment.

Being physically relaxed by architecture gymnastics, the participants had a tour of the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum. Mr. Tanaka, the curator, took them around the large garden inside the museum, looking at buildings such as the public bathhouse “Kodakara-yu” and the House of Kunio Mayekawa, which they expressed in architecture gymnastics.

One of the teachers who was scheduled to visit the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum for a field trip said, “Many of my students have eyesight problems, so activities where they can touch and feel things such as stone-grinding and fire making are really good. Even when they go around the buildings, they can use their senses of smell, sound and touch rather than just sight. It’s going to be a good experience.”

Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum is a facility where visitors can experience history and buildings with their whole body. Since it is an open air museum, the experience differs depending on the season, which is also fun. The teachers seem quite satisfied with the program. In the next installment, we will report on architecture gymnastics.