Yakisugi

What yakisugi means

Yakisugi is cedar board whose surface has been charred over fire. The layer of charcoal is said to protect the wood beneath from rain, sun, insects and fungi, and because the boards last without paint they have long been used as cladding, particularly in western Japan. Some are fixed with the black char left intact; others have the loose charcoal brushed off to bring out the grain.

It is often used where walls wear fastest. On storehouses and townhouses, the boards are commonly set vertically along the base of a white plastered wall, where rain splashing up from the ground strikes, protecting the plaster above. The contrast of white walls and black lower boards is a characteristic sight in the storehouse districts of western Japan.

Boarding the lower wall is also done with overlapping weatherboards, but that term names a way of fixing boards, lapped horizontally, whereas yakisugi names the material and its treatment. Charred boards can be fixed either as horizontal weatherboarding or as vertical boarding.

Reading the records and the building

Records give the treatment together with the way the boards are fixed, as vertical charred-cedar boarding. At the Mizuho Vinegar (Onishi family) works in Kashihara, Nara Prefecture, the former miso storehouse has walls plastered up to the eaves with a lower band of vertical charred-cedar boards, and the middle storehouse is finished the same way. The former mashing and bottling buildings follow the same scheme, showing a group of brewery buildings unified by a single finish.

On site, look at the colour and texture of the lower boards. A black surface with a fine, crazed layer of char is yakisugi. After many years the char thins and turns grey, and the boards can become hard to tell from ordinary old timber. Boards are frequently replaced in repairs; where new boards keep the charred finish, the original design is being maintained.