When renovating the cafe lounge facing the new glass tea room "Konchoan", Hiroshi Sugimoto would like to try to sculpt the furniture placed in that space while preserving the details of Ando architecture as much as possible. First of all, He will explain three kinds of special trees that he recently discovered.

Kamidai cedar is a semi-fossilized tree that is also called Jomon cedar. In 466 BC, the active volcano "Mt. Chokai" in Tohoku exploded, and the earthquake caused a large-scale collapse of the mountain body. It was discovered recently, about 2400 years after sleeping. If the age of the tree at the time of burial is estimated to be 1600 years, it means that the cedar germinated 4000 years ago. He was born in the age of the Gods.

Many Yakusugi trees grown in harsh environments are large trees, and trees over 1000 years old are called Yakusugi trees. In recent years, it has been registered as a World Natural Heritage Site and logging has been banned. This Yakusugi is about 1500 years old and was cut down before Oita, and the inside is hollowed out due to the age of the tree.

The Tochigi tree, which is the origin of the name of Tochigi prefecture, has been cut down in this region and is estimated to be 600 years old. The white and wavy bark is beautiful.

These three species of trees must have passed the time while listening to the voices of various birds. 4000 years of Kamidai cedar, 1500 years of Yakusugi, 600 years of Tochigi, and now, as a sculpture table in Sugimoto Gallery Cafe Lounge, it embodies the passage of time itself. In the "Corridor of Time", you can experience the feeling of going back in time. Giant trees have become the object of worship in Japan country as a god's ancestor. Hiroshi Sugimoto think that Kamidai cedar was worshiped by the Jomon people, Yakusugi was worshiped by the Yayoi people, and Tochigi was worshiped by the people of the Muromachi period. He named these trees "three kinds of sacred trees".