Growing up in Japan, kawara roofs were always around me. I saw them on houses in my neighborhood, on older homes, and on temples and shrines. But because I had never built or owned a house myself, I rarely thought about where the tiles came from or who made them. They were simply part of the view. And yet, when I picture a traditional Japanese house, it almost always has a kawara roof. It was not until I visited Echizen Seramika in Fukui that I began to see kawara not simply as part of the landscape, but as something people must actively find ways to continue producing.
Meeting Sakai-san
From the moment we arrived, Sakai-san began explaining the world of kawara to us. He walked us through the factory, showing us how different types of clay are blended, how the tiles are shaped, and how they slowly move through a nearly 70-meter-long kiln.
The process is technical, but his explanations never felt difficult to follow. He compared the blending of clay to making a hamburger, where the right combination of ingredients helps everything hold its shape. To describe the kiln, where one cart enters as another comes out, he used the image of a mechanical pencil being refilled from behind. Each comparison made an unfamiliar process easy to picture.
Later, I learned that before joining Echizen Seramika, Sakai-san had been a junior high school math teacher. Originally from Nagasaki, he studied education at university and spent several years teaching in Venezuela. His wife, whom he met while they were students, is from Fukui and grew up in the family that runs the kawara business. It made sense that he had once been a teacher. He did not simply tell us how kawara are made. He helped us understand why they are made that way.
Made for Fukui
Fukui receives a great deal of rain and, in winter, heavy snowfall. Unlike the dry, powdery snow found in some colder regions, the snow here contains more moisture. When it accumulates two meters high, Sakai-san explained, its weight can feel like having dozens of cars sitting on a roof. Echizen kawara are made for these conditions.
They are fired at a high temperature and baked slowly for 24 hours. This creates dense, strong tiles with a low water absorption rate, helping them withstand heavy snow, freezing temperatures, rain, and salt damage.
Kawara made in other parts of Japan have their own characteristics. Their size, shape, and strength reflect the climate where they are used. Regions with heavy rain need something different from drier areas, just as snowy Fukui needs tiles that can support the weight of wet snow. Kawara are not simply decorative elements added to a house. Their form carries generations of knowledge about how to live in a particular place.
In Fukui, that knowledge took the form of Echizen kawara.
A Familiar Landscape, Supported by a Shrinking Industry
On the drive to Echizen Seramika, I began noticing the roofs around us. Many were covered in the same silver-gray tiles, known as gin-nezu. Seen together, they gave the towns of Fukui a character that felt distinct from other parts of Japan.
For most of my life, I had thought of kawara roofs as individual parts of individual homes. I had not considered how, together, they could shape the identity of an entire place. There were once dozens of kawara makers in Fukui Prefecture. Today, only two remain.
Fewer younger people are choosing kawara when building new homes, and metal roofing has become more common. But the existing kawara roofs have not disappeared. Homes, temples, and shrines still need repairs, and the knowledge and materials required to maintain them will continue to be needed.
The question is how to keep the factory, the kiln, and that knowledge in use while the demand for roof tiles continues to change. This was the part of our visit that stayed with me most.
Making Something Else to Continue Making Kawara
The kiln at Echizen Seramika can fire as many as 6,000 roof tiles in one day. There was once enough demand to fill it with kawara every day. Today, if the company continued producing only roof tiles at that pace, it would quickly be surrounded by more inventory than it could sell. Echizen Seramika found another way. It began using the same clay, equipment, and firing knowledge to make floor and exterior tiles. These have been used in parks, public buildings, Echizen-Takefu Station, Fukui City Hall, and the Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum. The company also makes flower vases, small oni-gawara objects, chopstick rests, and tableware known as Echizen Gaki.
“By making many different things, we are able to keep making kawara.”
Sakai-san explained. The company is not making these objects because it has decided to move away from kawara. It is making them so it does not have to.
By filling part of the kiln with architectural tiles, plates, and other objects, the factory can continue operating without producing thousands of roof tiles that are not currently needed. These products create different sources of demand while keeping the kiln, material, and production knowledge in use. The tableware is therefore not simply a side project or a separate product line. It is part of the work of continuing to make kawara.
The Same Material, Given Another Place
The Echizen Gaki plates are made from the same material used for roof tiles. Each one is cut and finished by hand before entering the same kiln. Their weight, strength, and textured surface still carry the characteristics of kawara, even though their place has shifted from the roof to the table. Sakai-san described the plates simply:
“It lets what you place on it stand out.”
A restaurant in Shikoku began serving doughnuts on the plates and told him that the doughnuts started selling much more quickly. The plates themselves did not need to be the focus. Their texture and restrained color gave whatever was placed on them more presence. A roof tile, a public wall, and a plate may seem to belong to completely different parts of life. At Echizen Seramika, however, they are connected by the same material and the same purpose. Each creates another reason to prepare the clay, use the tools, fire the kiln, and continue the work.
Seeing More Possibilities in Kawara
What stayed with me was the way Echizen Seramika saw possibilities in the material they already knew so well. The strength that allows Echizen kawara to withstand Fukui’s heavy snow also makes the material suitable for floor tiles. Its low water absorption works for flower vases. Its weight and textured surface give plates and small objects a character of their own. Instead of limiting the material to the roof, Echizen Seramika continues to ask what else it can become.
The answer might be a wall at a train station, a walkway in a park, a plate on a restaurant table, or a small oni-gawara in someone’s home. Each new use creates another reason to work with the clay, fire the kiln, and keep the knowledge of kawara production in use. These new uses do not weaken the company’s connection to kawara. They make it possible for that connection to continue.
“Our mission is to protect this roofscape,” Sakai-san said. “That is why we make all these different things.”
Echizen Seramika is not simply trying to find new customers for an old product. It is looking closely at what the material can do and finding new places for it in the way we live today. A plate or a small object may be someone’s first encounter with kawara. It may lead them to notice the material, understand where it comes from, and perhaps look differently at the roofs that have long been part of Japan’s landscape. These new uses allow the material to remain present while giving people another way to discover its value.
As Sakai-san told us: “I believe there will come a time when people recognize the value of kawara again.”
