It's rice harvest time at the restored Shōya House at the Huntington Library

Published Oct 19, 2024 5:00 AM

Rice and other crops and plants growing in front of an ancient Japanese house.

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The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens is hosting their first rice harvest to mark a special occasion. And the public is invited to participate.

One year ago, the Huntington unveiled a reconstructed Shōya House in its gardens. The 3,000-square-foot structure, originally built around 1700 in Japan, was donated by Los Angeles residents Yokho and Akira Yokoi.

Over the course of nearly a decade, the house was dismantled, shipped and reassembled at the Huntington's Japanese Garden. Given the centrality of agriculture to the original compound, staff at the Huntington planted rice and other traditional Japanese crops around the house.

"We at the Huntington think of agriculture as the roots of the garden. And so we thought what a great opportunity to showcase this and talk about where our food actually comes from through a culturally specific product such as rice,” said Aaron Hughes, Horticulture Curator of Asian Gardens at the Huntington.

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A photograph of the Japanese Heritage Shōya House at The Huntington. A house with Japanese architecture is situated in front of tall trees and a landscaped yard. The house has white walls and siding with brown wooden beams. The house has a sloping roof with overlapping gray tiles in rows. The yard has manicured grass and shrubs, along with a bamboo fence with bamboo sticks overlaid in a lattice arrangement. A stone monument about four feet tall also sits in the yard.

Today, it’s harvest day — and the start of the grain’s cycle of reuse.

“Once we actually cut and we strip the grain from the rice stalks, we can then use that leftover foliage as fertilizer.” Hughes added. “One of the talking points that we want to focus on with this project is how each part of the rice plant can be used.”

It’s one example of the symbiosis between human and landscape exemplified by the Edo Period — the era where the Shōya House belonged.

“That's really what the Shōya House project is all about," Hughes said. "When you actually process and harvest the grain, it's an echo of the Edo period and what they were trying to do. Before the 1600s, their resources were overused. They quickly adjusted and they developed a very circular way of living."

Event details

The rice harvest event runs from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday. Visitors can learn to cut, dry, and hang their own rice bundles.