The final sketch for the butsudan
When I’m coming up with design ideas, I undertake a process that is part planning and problem solving, and part following a strong internal direction. In the custom projects I’ve been the most satisfied with, I’ve solved the problems of the client in a way that is consistent with my aesthetic and sensibilities. When designing a piece of furniture, I consider how I would enjoy using the piece.
When you do a web search for a butsudan, they are elaborate and ornate. My first thought when I was asked to building one, was that I might have to turn the job down. I didn’t see anything that looked like something I would do. The client then sent me a link to something a bit more modern and understated than I had seen so far. That link gave me a vision of a way forward. In breaking down what a butsudan is, I understood it to be simply a cabinet on a stand. If you think, cabinet on a stand as a furniture maker, you immediately look to James Krenov. Krenov turned the idea of the cabinet on a stand into an artform. I saw this as an opportunity to create something worthy of comparison. Fortunately Brendan Gaffney recently wrote a biography of Krenov, James Krenov: Leave Fingerprints. The reverence that James Krenov had for wood was inspiring. Gaffney’s book is a great read, I highly recommend. I was beginning to piece together ideas of things I would incorporate into this project. Another series of details came from several years ago. I took a course on Japanese Joinery with Yann Guagniere of Mokuchi Studio. There was definitely joinery we covered in the course that would be worth including. One of the last elements that I was interested in including was kumiko on the doors. Kumiko is Japanese lattice work that is most commonly used in shoji screens and doors. It’s become a popular element in furniture in the last few years and something I’ve been curious about for a while.
The one requirement for the inside of the piece was space for an urn, a friend of the client’s family made. My initial impression was that the urn would be displayed in front of the butsudan. With more conversations around the use of the piece I came to understand that having a space in the cabinet for the urn would be preferred. Another thing I discussed with the client was possibility having a light inside of the cabinet. The idea was to create a glow from inside the cabinet. With doors that included kumiko, with shoji paper behind the lattice work, lights inside the cabinet would emanate a soft glow through the doors.
I was almost ready to create a design. It’s rare to have every element of a design worked out before I begin a project. At some point there are just too many corners to see around, and you have to start down the path to be able to answer all of the questions. I’ve found that I have enough experience to understand how close I need to get before committing to a detail or determining the answer to a problem. One last thing was working out the section in the butsudan that would contain the urn. I wanted to have the urn behind a set of sliding doors, but I couldn’t come up with outside geometry of the cabinet I was happy with. The doors would need to be wide enough to show the urn, when open, and then slide behind the outside doors beside them to display the urn. Sliding doors, don’t go away. They can move over, they can slide behind another door, but they don’t disappear. I worked on sketching door possibilities and getting the overall cabinet to look good. After failing to get something I was happy with, I wondered what else I could do with the door that would reveal the urn. You sometimes need to get out of your own way to reveal other possible solutions to problems. An option could be to have the door open up and then slide back. This would allow the urn to be on display without the door being in the way.
Now that I solved the problem of the sliding doors by eliminating them altogether, I was ready to move forward and sketch the final design.
