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The Carpenter Who Listens to the Silence of Wood

Born in 1983 in Kyoto, where he still lives and works, Akiyoshi Fukushima gravitated towards sukiya architecture from a very young age. At eighteen, he chose this demanding path, captivated by the simplicity of teahouses and an aesthetic where beauty is expressed more through restraint than ostentation.
He trained with Taniguchi Komuten, under the tutelage of Master Taniguchi, heir to Sotoji Nakamura, an emblematic figure of sukiya carpentry during the Shōwa era. For thirteen years, Fukushima acquired far more than just technical skills: he absorbed a philosophy of craftsmanship, founded on absolute respect for materials, precision as a discipline, and the idea that the essential often resides in what is unseen.
Following this apprenticeship, he established his own practice. He then worked with several major tea ceremony lineages, participating in the construction, restoration, and relocation of teahouses throughout Japan. Remaining faithful to hand tools and traditional joinery techniques, he sought above all to reveal the presence of wood, its texture, its aging, and the temporal dimension that makes natural materials unique.

For Akiyoshi Fukushima, building is not simply about assembling a structure. His work is part of a larger project: to perpetuate a cultural spirit and design spaces where one can return to oneself. The teahouse, he explains, is a place that engages in a silent dialogue with those who enter it.
Today, he continues this mission with consistency and humility: preserving a heritage, transmitting knowledge, and ensuring that teahouse architecture thrives as a resolutely contemporary practice, not a static legacy, but a way of envisioning the future.