00:06 John Daub: Greetings everybody. Welcome to Yusuhara in Kochi Prefecture. How you doing? This is quite a ways away from Tokyo. We've come here to the countryside of Kochi. I want to bring you this library of all places.

00:27 John Daub: Now in the digital era, libraries have gone into our smartphones, tablets and computers. This is the Yusuhara Community Library designed by Kengo Kuma, who also is designing the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo. But he has a real connection with this town of Yusuhara. And I thought I'd bring you here today and show you one of the most beautiful libraries in the world. And we have permission to film and I have permission to take you in there. So this is kind of an exclusive inside look at the Yusuhara Library. Now I've already been in here and scouted this place out. It is incredible. Right now there's not a lot of people because they've just sort of opened up. The rain is starting to fall here and I'm here to film a couple of main channel episodes. You can see I really am in the countryside. I can hear the birds chirping. The air is sweet. It's fresh. And here's the design from the outside. Like all of Kengo Kuma's designs, there's an element of wood and naturalness to it. And there's a use of like a modern look connected with the natural world. I really love it. This is the outside of the library. And there's the roof. And now we're going to go inside.

01:43 John Daub: This is in Yusuhara. There's a link in the description if you're interested in finding out where this is in Kochi Prefecture. Kochi is on Shikoku Island, which is the smallest of Japan's four main islands. There's Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku. All right, let's go inside. Now, you have to take off your shoes here. I thought that this was kind of interesting. You have to leave your shoes at the door, so I'm going to do that. And you can take slippers if you want, complimentary slippers. Nice and comfortable. The colors of the slippers match with the wood on the floor. Look at this. There's my camera. I was here to film the inside. Now, this is a cafe. It just opened up. It's nice and warm in here. It's a little cool up here in the mountains. We're at elevation. Yusuhara is 500 meters above sea level.

02:47 John Daub: You can already see the inside is spectacular. And we're just getting warmed up. It's even better the further we go into this library. Here's where the periodicals are. So you can take a magazine and come over here to this reading bar, and I guess read it here standing. Or you can just have a seat in one of the chairs or lounge areas. But you can already see right above me, the use of wood is incredible. And the use of wood really fits in with the area. It's taking the design, kind of fitting it into this area. You don't want any kind of a design to stick out in a town. This town actually, all the buildings around here are really beautiful. And Yusuhara is kind of a place where you can really get into the world. And it's really becoming a trendy town. Like I showed you Kobayashi in Miyazaki a few weeks ago. And this is another really trendy town that's starting to grow. And I think it's just because of places like this, which doesn't really make sense because such a small population place has a library that looks so beautiful. And I got a little bit to tell you about the background of this. This library opened up last year. So it's relatively new. It is a working library.

04:11 John Daub: And the wood here on the ceiling looks like matchsticks, but it actually gives you the feeling that you're in a forest, like the canopy of being in a forest. And that's one of the neat aspects of this library. These wood lumber coming out of the ceiling. And I think it's really ceiling it's almost reminds me of the Starbucks design that Kengo Kuma did in Fukuoka if you've ever seen that and that's just crazy with the amount of wood sticking out of it. Here's the front desk. We do have permission to film and they've actually turned off the jazz music that was here just so it wouldn't be blocked. I'm gonna take you up here now and you get a chance to see the library looking back. I think that's it's even more impressive believe it or not and there's a lot of little stories that I'm gonna tell you along the way. Not a lot of you here like sometimes you'll see in the book stacks these little like dioramas. You see this this one's really neat. I mean they put a lot of effort into this little guys down there kind of I guess this this could be this building I don't know could be a shrine but it represents the local area.

05:54 John Daub: Yusuhara is very much in nature along the mountain here. Much of Kochi Prefecture is a little bit of a mountain. It's three-dimensional behind glass very cool and then inside the mountains you can see something's going on in there what is that just kind of surrounded by the books and it makes going to the library cool again. And once again we have permission to film so anyone who's telling me not to talk in a library I'm allowed to. I love Kengo Kuma's designs and his works and it's always a treat when you get a chance to take a look at the Master's fingerprints.

06:48 John Daub: Hey Taylor how you doing does the area have strict building codes that they all have to conform to that's a great question let me ask we have a representative of the area down there who's been able to answer some of my questions I would believe so you don't want to build buildings that stick out but here's here's a story okay this town Yusuhara changed the way that Kengo Kuma thinks in his design and he's been able to do that for a long time. At first I guess he had a relationship with the mayor of this town and at first he used in his designs a lot of concrete you can see it in his earlier designs and then after he came here he that's how he got in tune with using wood from this town and working here so I think it was there's a kabuki theater in this town that's that's maybe if we have time I'll get a chance to take you there in another live stream but it was it was that like being here in the middle of nature that inspired him for the future of the library and I think that's what's going on in the city for his current design and actually probably had a huge influence on the Olympic Stadium which is made of wood so it can all be tracked back to this town which is which is kind of a little story.

07:49 John Daub: I'm gonna turn the camera this way you can see now people have started to come in because the library has just opened but you can see looking down the library is one of the most popular places to come in Yusuhara. People just come and chill and relax there's no Starbucks or chain coffee shops or anything like that here there's no McDonald's I don't even think there's a convenience store but there is a library and it looks like this pretty nice huh.

08:45 John Daub: Why don't I put the wide-angle lens on the other side there you go I'll give you a chance to see if I can do the wide-angle lens on the other side I think it's it's more impressive than looking at me hold on a second how does it go oh this one looks better. Put it this way sorry all right there you go you guys are wide you're so wide you can see the gimbal sorry about that. I'm gonna take you in between the books the stacks the final other little Easter eggs in the library the more you walk around one thing that I noticed was like these this means a day so in in the Japanese alphabet this is hiragana this is "re" (a day) so all these books will have I believe authors who have a history that have R-E in their name. But these are made of wood as well. You can see that. On air, I have permission to talk. Just me. You can't say anything. Can't hear you anyways.

10:18 John Daub: All right, now looking back down, this is where we came up. And it's just so beautiful to find a place like this in the middle, in a small town in the middle of the woods. And this is one way that Japan is revitalizing its small towns. Its aging population is making it harder for these small towns to operate. The economies are shrinking. But when you build places like this, people are coming back. I think this is a great way to do that, to bring people back into small towns.

11:05 John Daub: Ovel Essoi, thank you very much. All right, I'm now inside of a smaller room now. There's O. It's a little bit of rain, so there's pitter patter on the roof above. You can hear it. Kind of makes it, gives you the feeling that you're in a, like a countryside, little countryside house, but you're in a very nice modern building with the tapping on the roof of the rain. You can hear it. There's another diorama, nice little glass display case right here. There's some unique, unique things in here. A little paper clipped onto the top there. Looks like scenes from mythological stories in Japan. And then you can see there's artists with no longer have their skin on. It's kind of neat. You can look at that for an hour and just keep discovering new things.

12:52 John Daub: I don't think they have any manga up here. It's mostly books, but they did have periodicals down there with magazines, but I didn't see any manga in particular. Again, this is a library. All right, there's one more room up here. Then I'll take you back down.

13:23 John Daub: Yeah, Binet, this is a very wide angle, so I just can't get this. I can't get the gimbal completely out of it, but the purpose of this live stream is to give you an inside look. It doesn't have to be the perfect inside look, but it's a pretty good look. Oh, wait, they do. Hold on a second. That's my hand. I'm putting the wide angle lens back on the other way. There seems to be some manga in this room. So, oh, that's not manga. That's just really colorful. Oh, yeah, it is. And you can see the books are backwards in Japan. So if you're reading it from, a Westerner would say this is left to right, right to left. Nice. Typically, they're playing jazz music, but they've turned it off for the live stream, which is really nice of them. Let's see what else that they have here. Collection, creation of the world. All sorts of books. And I love the way that they've taken some of them and displayed them, and I bet they rotate them. So you always get something new. So people will come back and discover a new book. I think that's really cool.

15:08 John Daub: And as we move to the digital world more, I got to tell you something. I kind of miss holding onto the paper, holding onto the book. There's something that feels good about putting a nice solid, well-bound book in your hand. Well-made. It gives what the print that you see in here, it gives it value. To me, the written word, when it's bound and presented well, it really does a lot of impact. And I really hope that we don't lose our libraries. And I love the fact that they've taken the concept of a library and they've done something like this to it. And here's some of the lumber on the on the roof. Again, the reason for those joining us, the reason for the wood coming out of the roof here is to make it, give it the image that you're inside of a forest. To give it the image like you're, like, under the canopy of wood. And considering books are made from trees, I think it's a good way to, either it shows respect to the trees, or it's teasing the trees, because you're laughing at them and said, hey, hey, we made, we made the books from your, your pulp, and we're going to take the rest of you and hang you from the ceiling. But then again, I'm a positive thinker. I think the best in people and ideas.

16:44 John Daub: I love the lounge areas that they have here. This is looking back down at the entrance that we were at. I love the wood floors. So beautiful. Everything just melts together here. It, it's, watching it on the live stream is not the same as being here. You can also smell, smell the wood. Maybe it's because it's new. I don't know, but the wood on the ceiling is giving off kind of an odor, like a good smell of being the wood. So you are allowed to take pictures here. It's okay. You're allowed to talk in a low voice, right? And you're allowed to drink stuff here, and you're not allowed to use cell phones. But I am because I was allowed.

17:32 John Daub: Do you have any questions people I don't think I'm gonna show you the restrooms although now the more I think about it the more I'm thinking maybe Kengo Kuma did something interesting with that too hey David missed you guys too I'm gonna be doing a couple of live streams from Kochi because you I think it's one of these places Kochi Prefecture that doesn't get enough attention because it's so far away from Tokyo and Osaka and Kyoto so whenever I get a chance to come here I want to show you as much as possible um so I I do have a few oh there's some manga here I do have a few um main channel episodes planned for Kochi so they do have manga but nothing in English which is good because now you can study Japanese all right this is a children's area where you can play that's kind of neat a baby room with children's books I like it I like it a lot this opened up about a year ago I don't see the restroom oh here it is okay I don't I don't know if I want to do this I don't very quickly I'll show you the restroom I don't think I even have a signal oh the lights turned on automatically whoa oh look there's bathroom slippers you guys happy now very clean look at this I could use these I'm not going in and I can't use the slippers oh look at that there's the bathroom slippers and you can for and family and then look they have a little teeny children's toilet look at that it's so small so papa and son can you know that's nice oh and you can see there's the the mascots for the 2020 Olympics we're so far away from the city of Tokyo but the impact of uh the Olympics reaches beyond the city it affects the whole country these are lockers that you can leave your stuff behind if you want to backpacks and things like that um I just leave my camera here I have no fear of anyone taking my things.

21:12 John Daub: All right I can tell them to turn them I can tell them to turn the um music back on any other questions before I leave the uh Yusuhara Community Library yeah um Angelia Kengo Kuma did design a Starbucks in Fukuoka that's very successful and I'm very excited about it I'm going to go to the Yusuhara Community Library similar to this one near um one of the shrines there all right are there strict building codes here like like in order to build uh something in the in Yusuhara it has to conform to rules like in Tokyo we have very strict building code do we have it somebody asked me a question I don't know I would assume so I would assume so thanks so much I hope you enjoyed this tour of the Yusuhara Community Library I'll give you one last look at at uh this library from a distance but um do subscribe and and keep watching because we got some more stuff that I want to show you from from Kochi look at this it's amazing it's a library what the internet is not this cool.