Summer residence of the Tokugawa family in Mito, Sankeien, Yokohama

My photos, unless otherwise indicated. Traditional Japanese architecture should be distinguished from modern architecture. I will discuss one first, then the other. Above is a Tokugawa summer residence. Structurally, it is very similar to that of a merchant, craftsman, or other common citizen. Below is a beautiful traditional house. In this case, it is a single-family home,

but there are also terraced houses, called nagaya (long houses).

Wikipedia, user 663 highland.

The simplicity is spartan.

Single-family house

The general characteristics of traditional architecture are:

• Houses made of wood (often unpainted) and paper

• No nails and joints that allow the parts to move relative to each other.

• Structural elements left exposed

• Distinction between inside and outside sometimes poor or absent. The landscape can be made part of the decor.

• Areas used for “dirty” work (laundry, toilet, kitchen, etc.) are isolated. The bathroom and toilet are separate spaces.

• The windows on the first floor are usually doors and have mosquito nets.

• There is a step between the house and the entrance. The area below is called the genkan, or entrance hall. Although the genkan is INSIDE the house, it is considered OUTSIDE, and delivery people, mail carriers, and visitors can open the outer door without any problems. The mailbox used to be located here.

• Usually, after the genkan step, there is a glass door that protects the privacy of those inside the house. As you can see, mine is missing. In any case, this second door is inviolable and must not be opened.

• The walls, when they exist, are only a few centimeters thick.

• The floor is made of rice straw mats called tatami. A room always has dimensions equal to a finite number of tatami (3, 4, 6, 8).

• This means that the house is modular. All its dimensions are standard, so “spare parts” can be purchased without measuring them.

• A room is often empty. The division between rooms is not fixed. In the case of the photo below, simply removing two panels transforms two medium-sized rooms into a conference or prayer room.

Wikimedia Commons, user 663highland

• Conversely, simply add a couple of panels to create a bedroom. In this case, the beds are behind those white doors.

• This coffee table is 21 cm high and the legs fold against its bottom. Changing the furniture, if you are satisfied with it, is quick and easy.

• Raw materials are often used for decorative purposes. See this wooden board. Bare and raw (but cleverly chosen) as it is, it proves to be very effective.

• Where possible, the house is surrounded by a wooden or straw fence.

• The fire is in a hole in the tatami mats, which can be covered and hidden. As you can see, there is no hood. Nevertheless, the draught is excellent and the room does not fill with smoke.

• The dining table is placed over a hole about 50 cm deep, allowing you to stretch your legs (horigotatsu).

• The tokonoma is a corner dedicated to art. You might think it is exclusive to the homes of the wealthy, but this is not the case. Note the extreme elegance and economy of the means by which it is achieved. Photo by 663highland, Wikipedia

• Asymmetry reigns supreme. Its opposite is carefully avoided.

• Similarly, imperfection is introduced when necessary. Perfection is neither beautiful nor desirable. It is precisely for this reason that the window below has not been made exactly round, but slightly flattened.

End of part one. If you have any questions, requests, or suggestions, please leave a comment.

I would like to take this opportunity to publish some photos of a completely different type of house, the collective farmhouse. As it is beyond the scope of this question, I will not discuss it, at least not here.

The photos were taken in Gifu Prefecture and the houses are original. However, these were peasant dwellings.

Traditional Japanese houses do not have a functional distinction between rooms, which can be reconfigured as desired (both in terms of surface area and use) by means of sliding panels, furniture, and other equipment that can be hidden in special containers built into the walls or under the floor.

In the home, as in every other aspect of their society, the Japanese have a strong sense of INSIDE and OUTSIDE, a division that is not always obvious to a foreigner but is nevertheless very strong. A clear example is the genkan, the entrance, which, although obviously “inside,” is functionally outside.

Its structure and use are evident in this drawing. The owners remain “at home,” that is, on the tatami mats and inside the sliding doors. The visitor we see leaving has been accompanied to the end of the tatami mats, where the house ends. Note that in the center of each door there is an area made of glass rather than paper, so that the visitor can be seen when the doors are closed. Many years ago, I lived in a house like this, but I kept the internal doors open, considering them useless, and I was always surprised by the cheekiness of the postman who opened the external door, violating (or so I believed) my privacy.

Then there is the engawa, a kind of veranda, which is also technically ‘outside’ but in reality ‘inside’.

This is evident in the way women sit, some completely inside, some partially outside. In the evening, the house is hermetically sealed off from the outside with panels such as those seen in the following video, and the engawa remains ‘inside’. The photos, incidentally, are by Adolfo Farsari, an Italian naturalized Englishman who documented Japan almost two centuries ago.

Religious influence is evident in the structure of the other rooms.

Heya no yogore, kokoro no midare, says the proverb, which means ‘Dirt, contamination of the heart’, where heart stands for soul and kegare for a profound spiritual contamination whose nature is impossible to explain in this context.

The washing machine was often left outside. Tiziano Terzani, in one of his thousand mistakes, cites this fact as proof of the poverty of the Japanese. Japanese houses are small, he says. In Tokyo, certainly, but here in Kamakura, a house like mine, 150 square meters, is not uncommon.

Bathing was not done at home but in the sentō, a public bathhouse whose disappearance I find regrettable. In the evening, people would go to the sentō, meet up with friends, and chat. Photo from Wikipedia.

While soaking in the bath, one could find out about events in the neighborhood.

In any case, the bath is as much for relaxation as it is for cleaning. Finally, the toilet, the famous Japanese toilet. Here is my wife's.

The desire to isolate the toilet from the rest of the house is made very clear by the fact that BEFORE ENTERING THE TOILET, YOU CHANGE YOUR SLIPPERS. Those for the toilet must not be used anywhere else for any reason.

“Borrowing” the landscape

A striking exception to the desire to separate the inside from the outside is the Japanese custom of making the “outside” part of the “inside.”

In Japanese, this is called “borrowing” the landscape, and it is done as soon as the opportunity arises.

Personal final assessment

So, what are Japanese houses like? Charming but uncomfortable. Drafty everywhere, cold in winter and hot in summer, they don't last long and cost a lot, plus they are prone to insect infestations, from termites to mites.

However, they are the houses you want in the event of an earthquake. Bearing in mind that the aftershocks of the Fukushima earthquake were much, much stronger than the one that destroyed Messina and became proverbial, and that they did no damage here, it is easy to understand why they are necessary. The problem of avoiding fires, the traditional scourge of Japanese cities, remains.

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