The Japanese House: In Space, Memory, and Language 9784903452029

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THE JAPANESE HOUSE In Space, Memory; and Language

LTCB Intern ational Library Selection N o. 17

•

"House IPress

THE JAPANESE HOUSE In Space, Memory, and Language

Nakagawa Takeshi Professor, Department ofArchitecture, Waseda University

Translated by Geraldine Harcourt

Th is book was originally published in 2002 by T OTO Shuppan, und er the title Nihan no ie: kukan, kiaku, kataba. Engli sh translat ion rights are reserved by th e Intern ati on al House of Japan, Inc., under contract with Nakagawa Takeshi and through th e cour tesy of TO T O Shuppan.

© 200 5 by the Intern ationa l H ou se of Japan, Inc. First edition 2005 .

Second edition 2006.

All rights reserved by the Intern ational Hou se of Japan, Inc. N o part of this book may be used or reprod uced in an y manner wh at soever witho ut w ritten perm ission, except for br ief quotation s embo died in critical articles and reviews .

Second English edition pub lished Ma y 200 6 by l-H ouse Press. 11-16 , Rop pongi 5-chome, Minato-ku, Tok yo 106-0032, Jap an Tel: +81-3-34 70 -9059 Fax: +81-3-34 70-3 170 E-ma il: [email protected]. jp

This volume is a slightly revised vers ion of the fir st English edition, which was published in 2005 as LTCB Intern ationa l Library Selection No . 17, in a series publi shed by the Int ernat ional H ou se of Japan for the LTCB (Lon-Term Credit Bank of Jap an ) Int ern at ional Libr ary Tru st. Book design: Oga ta Hi roko Print ed in Japan ISBN 4-90345 2-02 -6 Cl052 Y1905E

iv

Transliteration of Foreign 'Vords The Hepburn system of ro manization is used for Jap an ese terms, inclu ding the names of persons and places. Except for familiar place names, long vowe ls are indicated by macro ns. The older He pburn pract ice of usin g m instead of 11 before p, b, or m is foll owed. An apos trophe is used to disting uish sylla blefinal 11 from 11 at th e begin ni ng of a sylla ble . The spell ing of non-J ap anese words th at ha ve been incorporat ed into Ja panese reflects the way th ese wo rd s are prono unced by Japanese speakers. Chinese words ar e romanized using the pin yin system. T he roma nizatio n of Korea n w o rds foll ows the M cC une -Reischa uer system. T he local custom of placing th e famil y nam e first has been follo wed for th e names of Japanese, Chinese, an d Korean persons. N ote to th e reader: Words in the text written in small cap ita ls and followe d by a section ma rk (as in CENT RAL PILLAR § 14) are chapter titl es. Words followed by an asteris k (as in nijiriguchiri ar e glossary entries.

Contents

Introduction to the English Edition - - - - - - - - viii Introduction - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

xi

BOUNDARY SPACES 01. T h e Ea r t h e n Floor / 02 . The Entrance Sill /

ta ta ki

002

aq a r i k a m a c h i

03 . The Shoe-Removing Stone / 04. The Ve r an d a /

011

k u t s u n uq i i s h i

020

s

029

e ng a w a

05 . The Covered Earthen Terrace /

d o b is a s h i

039

PARTITIO NS 06 . Latticework / k o s h i

-

-

- --

-

-

-

- -- - -

07. Reed Blinds / y o s h iz u

052 063

08 . Opaque Sliding Screens / f

072

usuma

09. "Snow-viewing" Shoji / y u k i m i s h oj i

084

SETT INGS 10 . The Sunken Hearth / 11. The

i r o r i - - - -- --

094 103

B at h / f ur o

12 . The Family Living Room / 13. The Kitchen /

- --

katt e

ch a n om a

112 120

vi

COJVIPONENTS 14 . T h e Central Pillar / 15 . The He ad Band

daikokubushira -

/ n ag e sh i -

16 . The Decorative Recess

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

13 2

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

14 0

/ o s h i- it a -

-

-

-

-

-

-

14 9

17 . The Ceiling / t e n j o- - - - - - - - - - - - - 159

FITT INGS 18 . Straw Floor ~atti ng / 19 . The Box Staircase /

1

t atami -

-

-

hakokaid a n -

20. The Chest of Drawers /

-

-

-

-

--170

- --

-

-

-

-179

tansu -

- --

-

-

-

-187

- 1 98

MATERIALS 2 1. Lacquer /

1122.

Tiles /

ur ush i -

k a w ara -

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

- - 208

SYMBOLS 23 . The Buddhist Household Alt ar / 24. The Nam e plat e /

b u ts u d a n.

h y 6satsu

1

25 . The Groundbreaking Ceremony / j

220 230

i ch i n s a i

237

Glossar y

246

Afterword

260

Acknowledgements

26 2

Index

265

vii

Introduction to the English Edition The location of the japanese arc hipelag o, not far off th e east coa st of the Eurasian continent, ha s been a key factor in the histor y, culture, and instituti on s of the nation of japan. Fro m ancient times, ther e has been an influx of people, goods, an d ideas. They did not pass on to other places via j ap an -once something entered th e country, it tended to tak e root and mature on j apanese so il. Altho ugh a few ha ve been repelled , most of th ese inn ovat ion s, while the y have been greatly altered as successive wave s ha ve reached our shores, have event ua lly merged with wha t alr ead y existed here, blending in so well th at th ey might alwa ys have been part of th e local scenery. The arrival of Commodore Matt hew Perry's " black ships" in 1853 was a shock ing event that heralded one of those great waves. Backed by the Amer ica n gun boats, the dem and th at the Tokugawa shoguna te end more than two centuries of nation al seclusion and open its ports to for eign trade was a direct application of pressure by th e developed mod ern soc ieties of th e West, and it proved to be a major impetus toward th e esta blishment of the Me iji gov ern ment in 1868 an d subsequent mod ern izat ion. The clash between old and new was certainly attended by socia l upheaval an d str ess. Nevertheless, earl y published acco unts by Western visitors to japa n, such as E. S. Morse's Japanese Homes and Th eir Surroun dings (1886), contain man y appreciative descripti ons of the beauty of villages in the countryside and the plain but meticulou sly kept machiya (town hou ses). japa n's defeat in World War II (1945) was an oth er wa ters hed event in the nati on 's modern histo ry. Many japanese cities, H irosh ima and N agasaki foremost among them, were reduced to ashes. Sixty years later, modernization has permeated the entire co untry, the maj or cities have beco me highdensity metropolises and, with some special exceptions, th e scenery th at moved E. S. Morse and his cont emporaries to speak of " the heart ofjapan" ha s been all but erased. Now a revival of th e tradition al has brought a qui et boom of j apa nese styles of clothing, food , and ho using. Similarly, th e films of Oz u Yasujir6

viii

have recently been attracting renewed interest, with their understated domestic tableaus and their lovingl y detailed depictions of the mentality of white-collar households or marital life in the 1930s and, after th e wa r, on int o the 1950s. What do these recent developments mean? Perhaps it was only after the calm atmosphere of the old towns and villages and the harmony between houses and the terrain had been lost, along with the rich culture of local festivals and events that were part of people's lives, th at we realized the ir true worth. Reviving the styles of the past in areas of per sonal taste and th e arts in a nostalgic bid to recapture lost values is hardly a new phenomenon, nor is it unique to Japan. I hope th at this bo ok will co nvey, to readers interested in Japanese domestic architecture and culture, more than just th is kind of nostalgic regret for the lost beauty of tradition. For the things I write about were, in fact , qu ite ordinary sights in the traditional commercial districts (shitamachi) and subur ban agricultural communities of large cities until ab out 19 60. The almost total disappearance of Japan 's tr adi tional scenery is a result not of the Meiji government's program of Westernization, nor of World War II, but of the high economic gro wth and pursuit of rapid modernization that began in th e earl y 1960s. Domesti c life, dwelling s, and living environments ar e among the mo st conservative elements of an y society, closely bound to nature. In pr emodern times, they changed all but imperceptibly, pa rticularly in Japan; largely for that reason, houses were richly imbued with folk wisdom. Before we knew it, however, we lost something irreplaceable. In this bo ok , I want to take a good look at the real meaning of what we have lost, in the hope that we can somehow carr y the things we love and value over into hou ses of th e future. I once tried pre senting some of th e material in this book in English at an overseas symposium on the topic "W hat aspects of Asia's traditional architectur e should be kept for the future?" I remember discovering to my surprise that, even though as a contemporary Japanese I felt that tradition wa s a thing of the distant pa st, much of my paper was in fact based on premises

ix

that I had been taking for granted, and I found translating the se implicit assumptions into a foreign language an uncommonly diffi cult ta sk . I am therefore especiall y delighted that Th e Japanes e H ouse ha s been chosen for English publication in the LTCB International Library Trust series, which intr oduces Japanese culture to the world. The transl ator, Geraldine Ha rcourt, with her spirit of inquiry into and lov e of Japanese cu lture, ha s shown rem arkable dedi cation ; her Eng lish vers ion seems to me easier to understand-even for a Japane se-than my ambiguous original. The book 's designer, Ogata Hiroko, who was also responsible for the Japanese edition, deserves speci al mention. I would like to express my thanks to all those who took pa rt in th e pro ject, espe ciall y Sa ji Yasuo, who saw th e book throu gh to publicati on from start to finish. If the res ult of thei r team work can contribute, in ho wever small a way, to cultural excha nge in th e interests of a peac eful world and a fulfilling wa y of life, I will be happy indeed.

Nakagawa Tak eshi February 5, 2005

x

Inlroduction Years ago, one of my students ask ed, "W hat's that whatchamacallit like a pillar turned on its side?" Young people today barely notice the nagesh i, th e head band or lintel beam that runs at eye level around the w alls of a traditional-style Japanese room. But until the mid-1950s, ever y wo oden dwelling, no matter how cheaply built, followed the ba sic model of traditional residential ar chitecture; and even apartments in reinforced concrete buildings always had at least one tatarni-floored room, which would ha ve such traditional features as the nageshi and the kamoi, a lintel with tracks for sliding doors. At some point, though , the nageshi disappeared from the average house, and so it 's hardly surprising that th e younger generation has grown up not knowing wh at it is. Yet, even today, quite a few students show an interest in shoji, tatami, and verandas , despite having grown up in houses that did not ha ve th em. Japan's tr aditional domestic architecture had a large vocabulary referring to various site s, components, fittings, boundaries, materials, and so on. In the se essays, one line of inquiry that I wanted to pursue wa s to look at whi ch terms have been forgotten a nd which are still in us e, and to weigh the fac tors that determine whether a word survives or pa sses into obli vion. M emories of th e old houses that I ha ve kn own come back to me in one bittersweet scene after another. I remember how good it felt to take a nap on tatami shaded by reed blinds; what fun it was to spit watermelon seeds from a veranda; th e gentle warmth of the dark interior of an earthen-walled storehouse; the thrill of tales heard late at night, snuggled up beside the hearth. Modern housing is suppose d to have brought us a steady succession of benefits, but wh y is it, I wonder, that the y never seem to arouse an y very deep emotion? To gain something, we have to give something up , and our residential lifestyle has been modernized at th e expense of many th ings that we w ere fond of . Often we gave them up to move with the times, to gain the latest in

xi

perform ance. I can appreciate state-of-the-art comfort s myself, ha ving experienced them in friends ' contempo rary hom es and in good - though perhaps not deluxe-hotels and inns. And yet th ese new things fail to move me like the old one s that I sorely miss. Th is sense of loss, and thi s emotional respon se, may point to wh at really matters in a hou se. Perh ap s recognizing that modern convenience and comfort are ultimately inevitable, while at the same time feeling that we have lost som ething vital and irr eplaceable, offers us the cha nce to begin living a more solid, rooted existence. In other wo rds, in looking back , we may discover other possibilities closer to hand. My field is the history of arc hitecture. I view architecture as a process of change, of creation, development, and decay. A majo r th eme of my wor k is the struc ture of time as it relates to arc hitecture. The architectural histor ian 's approach is based on a time scale that is meas ured in centuries, like Japan's Ancient peri od (552 -1185), M edieval period (11 85-1568), Early Modern period (1568-1868) , M odern per iod (1868-194 5), and Co ntemp orary period (1945-), and that th erefore lies outside our imm ediate exper ience. But althou gh , in th e a bstract, I can conceive of the accumulated momen ts of a multitude of lives resulting in great chang es over ti me, th e idea lacks a tangible reality. Thus, whenever possible I like to stud y th e macroscopic processes of history at a con crete , person al level. Conversely, I always look for tra ces of history in the facts th at I observe on the micro level, and I have made th is my method. In th e field of dome sti c arc hi tecture, I hope that, through thei r concreten ess, the term inology and the sma ll details of houses will afford glimpses of broad historical processes at work. Another th ing th at I ho pe to achieve in thi s book is to clari fy to my own satisfaction th e relationship between houses and arc hitecture . It used to be said that "Arc hitectur e begins and ends with th e hou se." I take this to mean that designing a hou se is th e easiest place for a novice to begin his or her tra ining, as everyone has person al exper ience of hou ses, but th at ultimat ely th ere is nothing so difficult and complex to design, an d one is not a

xii

full-fledged architect until one can do it well. Lately, however, I don't ofte n hear thi s saying. At the height of modernism, houses were thought to be conceptually "broader than architecture," because of the strong influence of such factors as the occupants' life circumstances and cla ss consciousness, and the ideal was to "change the world through housing." Today, however, such views have fallen out of favor. T his probably reflects the fact that we can no longer theoretically justify treating houses as a unique case. As a result , the boundary between residential and other forms of architecture has become blurred, and freedom of design reigns. But, compared to the diverse array of forms and images, what about the way we live in our houses? It seems to me that the appearance of freedom is superficial, that in fact we are bringing an increasingly uniform mentality to domestic life. This may be one of the most fundamental problems inherent in modern and contemporary housing. For example, what will become of household Buddhist and Shinto altars? At this point they are barely holding their ground, but their eventual disappearance is probably only a matter of time . And, with them, the old intimacy with birth and death is fading from our houses: almost no one gives birth at home these days , and if the household altar disappears, death, too, will recede into the distance. As a consequence of modernization, such trends have long been pa rt of our experience of houses and domestic life. In the past, we lived fully in the home and the community, in the sense of being alive as well as dwelling there- for, of course, there is a fertile confusion between dwelling and living . N ow the role of the home, not only in birth and death but in ho spitality, festivals, and the like , ha s been ceded to the outside world, and as part of the same process, the community has collapsed. As a result, Japanese houses have been relieved of some weighty responsibilities, but much ha s also been lost. I do not believe that these histor ical changes can be reversed . What I want to do is to recognize what w e have lost, not in order to lament its passing, but in order to become truly free.

xiii

004 BOUNDARY SPACES

whic h hardens on being mixed w it h lime, it ha s traditiona lly been used to make garden ponds as well as eart hen floors . I have not ascerta ined whethe r Sanshu earth was used in the doma of the Egawa house, but it is certainly a very impressive tataki. If this great entry area had simply been regarded as a place where people come and go wearing outdoor shoes, and had been paved accordingly with con crete, mortar, brick, or tile, would it ha ve had the same atmosphere? Hoofbeats wo uld no longer echo there , to be sure; in fact, nearly all the qualities now present that evoke a long-gone way of life wo uld surely be exp unged. It was important that this area be made of earth. Indeed, it is not ha rd to picture the process by which a material like tataki was developed to withstand the various uses that earthen floors were put to in everyday life. As I see it, though, we are not ta lking here a bout a series of merely func tio na l imp ro vements in the floor's hardness, evenness, or cleanliness, much less a pro cess of purely technical development tha t took earth as its sta rting point. I believe that these ob servations point us to war d the tru e significance of th e tataki . In ot her words, it seems to me that the tataki was not just a substi tute for co ncrete in the da ys before concrete existed. As I will exp lain, I believe it was rich ly imbued with a meaning that has been lost in our conte mporary living spaces.

Bittern in the Tataki, Salt in the Sumo Ring It is worth asking at th is poi nt why bittern is added in making a tataki . A bypro duct of sea salt used as a hardening agent since an cient tim es, it was probab ly introdu ced to th e mixtur e to help it set, even w hen, as in the case of Sanshu earth, the other ingredient s react rea dily with lime. Whenever I see a doma with a bea utif ul ear then floor, it remi nds me of the ring used in sumo wrestling. As everyone who has wa tched sumo knows, th e wrestlers sca tte r large q uantities of salt around th e ring. T he pur pose of this

006 BOUNDARYSPACES

rite is purification, and it looks to me very much as though bittern was adde to pur ify the earth, in addition to its solidifying role. Unlike a floor of wood, rararni, or stone, when a beautiful tataki floor has been swept clean, on e has he sense that, rather than the dirt being swept up from its surface, th e eart h has absorbed it, taken it into its womb and returned it to life newly cleansed. Thus, one has the sense of an eternally living thing. There are a number of customs that involve, for example, placing heaps of sand on either side of the main entrance of the worship hall at a shrine, or a pile of salt at the door of a bar or restaurant. The idea is to bring good fortu ne, ut a common denominator is the fact that the surface is first swept clean. As a result, the piles of sand or salt could be said to ha ve taken on connotations of pur ity. Bittern is added to a tataki in much the same way that salt is scattered over a sumo ring: it purifies the earth that has been drawn into the living space. When one thinks of ritual purification, the periodic rebuilding of Ise Shrine tshihinen zotai ") comes to mind as one example. But there are others closer at hand among the daily habits of life in Japan, with their strong element of tr adition : the fact that we change the water on a household Shinto altar ever y morn ing, the fact that we clean our workplace before starting the day's work. These actions, too, are rituals for the regeneration of a new life ene rgy .

The Types of Floors in Japanese Houses What position do earthen floors, as typified by tataki, occupy in the history of Japanese domestic architecture? Primitive Japanese dwellings are often viewed in ter ms of two broad lineages, the northern pit house (tateana jukyo '') and the southern raised-floor ho use takayuka jukyo "). In point of fact , there are also thought to have been many _ ound-level houses (heichishik i juky o ") which do not belong to eithe r categ ory.

Ba mboo-slat floor of the main room in the Kit a m ura house (Kawasaki M u ni cip a l Nih on Mink a- En , Kanagaw a Pref. ). In pr ac tice , it was o verlaid w it h str a w matting.

007 TH E EARTH EN FLOOR

For the sake of simplicity, however, we can say that one way of viewing the history of Japanese dwellings (including the gro und-level type) is to set up a distinctio n between those with earth en floors and those with raised floors of wooden planks. T here is also evidence of severa l other low floor types, including earthen floors covered with bamboo slats, and wo oden floors such as the korobashiyuk a. " However, assumin g that these developed from th e earthen floor as living arrange ments improved, they should be considered part of the pit hou se lineage. The typology of floor s in the history of Japanese domestic architecture involves complex questions, including the difficulty of determ ining whether the raised-floor lineage origina ted in an imported style used in storeho uses and upper-class dwe llings, which then underwent a gra dua l lowering of th e floor height , or whether the first wooden floors were built in pit houses and the floor height was gradually raised. The line of Japanese do mesti c architecture th at continues to the pre sent day can be regarded as reaching its full rea lization in th e Edo period (1600 - 1868), in a sty le of ho use with three typ es of floor that had separate lineages: the ear then floor, floorboards, and tat am i. The ea rthen-floo red doma attests to th e co ntin uity, da ting back to pri mitive times, of the tradition of pit and gro und-level dwe llings. Certain characteristics of traditional lifestyles, such as the fac t that aspects of production (centered on farming ) were bro ught inside the house, and th e close communal ties within a village or neig hborhood, gave rise to uniq ue areas with a finely nu anced degree of pu blic/private, intermed iate bet ween the public externa l space and the fami ly's priva te space. T hese were th e semi -public areas of the dwelling site, and the doma. The doma cam e to be adopted in tradi tional-style hou ses in towns as well as rural distri cts, an d over th e centur ies it maint ained its identity as a rich site of th e life of th e commo n people, with ties to production and na ture in th e wo rld outs ide th e home and to th e local community. Similarly, wooden floors wer e th e stage for the elite culture th at deve lop ed in the shi nden zu hu ri '--sty le dwe llings of the ancient aristocracy, w hile tatami

008 HOUNDARY SPACES

mats represe nt the culture assoc iated with the shoinzuhuri " style of resident ial architecture, which developed mainly in samurai hou ses of th e earl y modern period. T hus, th e tr aditi on al Japanese hou se is an ama lgam of diverse cultu res arising fro m different histori c periods and different classes, and at the ir ro ot we find th e doma .

Unfloored Entryways in Japan and the West Many houses built today in a traditional Ja pa nese style adopt an earthen floor not on ly in the entr ywa y but also und er th e eaves or a pent roof, and th is generally has a tr adition al tatak i sur face. But an ar ea of this kind also features in a surprising number of houses designed by contemp orary architects, mak ing the :eel of ear th an impor tant element of th e living space. In some cases, harmony r , achieved between th e tatak i ma terial and modern tech nol ogy, as when an exposed pe bble-aggregate effect is obta ined on a concrete or mortar surface. Since there is an alm ost com plet e division betwe en indoor and outdoor 3. - ivities in pre sent-da y life in Japa n, witho ut the area of overlap for which a soma was once required, in pure ly functional terms th ere is little need for a .:. ma in a co nt emporary hom e, except as a place for changing one's shoes. Th us, to a grea ter or lesser extent , these mode rn instance s ca n be seen as symlie, evoking memor ies of th e earth or a sense of co nnectedness with it. In contrast, in Western houses, where it ha s never been customary to change ce's footwear on enter ing and leaving, there are virt ua lly no earthe n-floored reas like th e doma, and even where th e entryway is a compara ble br ick- or one-floored area , it will mo st often be strongly art ificial in character, serving _ distance and protect th e living space from nature, ra ther th an expr essing a -~ e of connectedness with it. T he relative importance of eart hen floors in Japanese hou ses and their rarin the West can be sa id to reflect cultur al diffe ren ces-different views of 0

-

The tataki of the Emukai house, a farmhouse from the Gokayama district of Toya ma Pref. (Kaw as ak i Mun icip a l N ihon M in ka-E n, Kanaga wa Pref.). Th e tatahi is also a stage for th e int erpl ay of ligh t and shadow . The ligh t ap pea rs br ighter a nd smo other , th e shadows dar ker and deeper.

009 TH E EARTHE N FLOOR

nature as part of a different co nsc io usness of th e home or spatia l relat ions, different communal ties, different traditional values , and so on . But it is also very pertinent to ask whether the method of finishing earthen floor s kn own as tatak i was available in th e West. A tataki sur face can be tr acked with dirt and still ha ve a strong aura of cleanliness; it ca n seem both wa rm and cold , hard and soft at th e same time. Ja pan 's earthen-floored spaces have th eir origin in the power of thi s ambivalent material, which falls som ewhere betw een nature and art ifice.

010 BOUNDARY SPACES

-

02.

(l/l a r i k a l l / a r l z

THE ENTRANCE SILL agarikamachi (var. agarigam achi ): A hor izo nta l timber sill at a part of a hou se throu gh wh ich one steps into the house prope r, suc h as t he ent ra nce ha ll. (a s defined in Daijirin, Sanseido )

What Is a Kamachi? The term kamachi refers to the members of the frame of a door , sliding screen shoji), or simil ar fixture; it can often be tr an slated " rail" or "si ll." Th e horizont al member fitt ed at the edge of a woo den floor in a part of a house where o ne ste ps up into th e ho use prop er , such as th e entrance hall , is ca lled an searik am ac h i (ent ra nce si ll) . T h us, I supp o se w e could say that an searikamachi is a sill at a particular locat ion. Yet th is would be somehow to miss the point. As an example of wh at I mean , wh en I occasionally come across a very fine, substa nt ial agarikamachi in an old sho p that has reta ined an earthen ;:l oor as part of its storefront, or in a gra nd m ink a, I not ice th at its pre sence creates a cert ain atmosph ere. If we can ident ify th is elusive qu ality, it will be the cey to exp laining th e mystery of the agarikamachi, a seemingly unr ema rk abl e

011 TH E ENT RANCE SILL

012 BOUNDARY SPACES

Above: The agarikamachi of Ten 'a n, a shop selling foo d pr eserved by boi ling down in soy, in T suku shima, Tokyo . The timber is 30 em thick, but there is a distance of 43 cm from the floor of the doma to the uppe r edge of the agarikama chi- as high as the seat of a chair. Thi s is an exa mple of exaggerated expression.

eft: T he agarikamachi of th e Ta kishima T os h i r o h ou s e ( O rn e C it y, T ok y o . erro politan Area ). A horizontal timb er of .ova wood is used at the end of the ratami r. _ om left: The agarikamachi of the old "o s h in o hou se (O rn e C ity , T o k y o rropoliran Area ). The shelves set into the ar e a place to keep outdoor footwear.

013 THE ENTRANCE SILL

.. element of domestic architecture th at nevertheless eman at es a certain indefinabl e something. Let us sort out the terminology a little further. A kamachi is a member in an outer frame , usually that of a hou se fitting, such as a door or sho ji. By extensio n, fra mes in gene ral may also be called kamachi. In cases w here there are two floor levels, one enclosed w ith wa lls while the other is open (for exa mple, a tokon oma, a vera nda, or th e part of an entrance hall where on e steps up to th e rai sed floo r ), the end of o ne of the floor surfaces is alm ost always concea led by a horizontal fa cin g timber. These timbers, too, are kam achi; and th ey have names th at indica te th eir locations, such as tok ogam acbi " (a horizonta l facing timber that conceals the edge of an alco ve) or engamachi (a hea vy horizontal timber along th e o uts ide edge of a veranda fram ework, over th e struts). Th e facing at the point where one steps up into th e hou se proper, as in an entrance hall. ihas a name of thi s kind, agarikamachi. Let us start, then, by con sider ing whether the word kamachi changes in meaning wh en it refers to a frame and when it refers to th e facin g at the edge of a floo r.

Door Frames with No Top Rail We tend to take for granted th e frames of house fittings such as doors and sliding screens. In terms of how doors and sho ji ar e fitt ed in place and used , their frame s as we know th em to day seem wholly necessar y and practical. In minka built before th e mod ern era, however , some of th e door ways of the doma entryw ay that were fitt ed with wooden sliding doors had frame members onl y along their sides and bottom, not at the top. In the earl y modern era (w hich co rr es p o nds more o r less to the Edo peri od , 1600 -1868 ), pr ofession al carpenters built certain parts of a minka, namel y, the st ru ctu r a l elements, decorati ve elements such as floors and shelves, and most of th e house fittings, while the rest of the work was done

014 BOUNDARY SPACES

on a basis of local self-sufficiency, making active use of the organizat ion for mutual help (often known as the yu i) that existed in every village community to supp ly labor and materials during busy periods. (In some parts of the country this division of building labor lasted beyond the Edo period, int o the M eiji period [1868-1 912] and even up to W orld W ar IL) Amo ng the tasks that were taken on by local workers was fr aming t he dom a' s doorways and th e small windows let into the mud-plastered walls to admit light, which were closed with sliding plank doors . If a sturdy fr ame could be mad e with sid e and bottom rails only, that was good enough. Toward the end of the Edo period, professionally made frames with rails on all four sides gradually replaced the three-sided kind as farmers began to acquire sour ces of cash income (such as growing silkworms) and were abl e to ha ve their house fittings mad e by artisans . Th us, we can make out the general direction of the technical evolution of house fittings. It should be added, however, that ar tisans sometimes delib erately cre ated a hom emade touch by craft ing a frame with no top rail , e.g., for the sliding door of the niji riguchi, " the tiny entrance used by guests in th e rustic style of teahouse known as soan chashitsu. As thi s brief hi story shows, even w hen the significance of a part seems obvious , like th at of the door frames known as kamachi, it may change with the class and the er a to which a bu ild ing belongs. These o bservations could shed a good deal of light on the agarikamachi. »,

Entrance Hall Platforms and Verandas It is clear, at this point, that the facing timber fitted at the edge of a floor at a point wh ere one steps into the building proper, e.g., in the entrance hall of a house, is called the agarikamachi . As we think about the meaning of this term, however, we need to ask whether there ha s always been a kamachi in this po sition.

015 TH E ENTR AN CE SILL

h.

In a higher-class minka, such as the house of a village head, several points of access were provided: th e sbih idai " (a low wooden step or platform in the formal entrance hall , from which one steps up onto th e ra ised floor beyond) , which was used by th e overs eeing magistrate on his periodic visits or by guests atte ndi ng funerals, weddings, and other ceremonial occasio ns; th e VE RANDA (§4); and th e place where one step ped up to the ra ised floor of th e building' s interio r from th e dom a (i.e., grou nd level). Th e shikidai is alw ays fitte d with a sill. The shik idai is of relatively recent orig in, however; it shows th e infl uence of th e form al entrance ha ll of upperclass resi de nces, as seen in th e hojo ,,- (the a bbot's qu arters at a Ze n temple, which had an area for receiving guests) or in samurai hou ses of the shoinzukuri style, a sma ller and simpler versio n of which eventually rea ched the m inka. Th e par ts of a verand a used for coming and go ing we re o ften ad jacent either to the ado , " the great door which gave access to the earthen doma, or to th e shikidai entry platform. Entering and leaving at the se points was less formal th an using the shikidai but not as informal as using the doma, which was typicall y for the famil y' s ow n use; thus, the vera nda pla yed an intermediate role. In thi s context , it is worth noting that verandas can be divide d into those with a kamachi along the edge, an d th ose without one. T he type of veranda kn own as ki rim e-en, in which the boards (en-ita '') are laid at right angles to the vera nda's long ax is, is commo n in upp er-class hou ses, templ es, and shri nes . T he boards simp ly exten d beyon d the structura l members th at support them, the enkazura, , - with no kam achi to cover their ends. Thus, the cut ends of the timber are left exposed. The kirime -en boards are too thick to be easily damaged, and their exposed ends have become an established part of the design of vera ndas in the upper-class style. (O n the upper stories of a five-sto ried pagoda, for example, there is no actual veranda, but exposed board-ends for m a decorative design element.) In short, we can say tha t th e hirim e-en, the style with no kam achi, has remained quite sta ble over time .

016 BOUNDARY SPACES

The other major veranda style, commonly used in ordinary min l:a, is the k ure-en, in which the boards are laid parallel to the long axis of the vera nda. In this sty le, an engamachi (veranda kamachi) is almost always fitt ed at the ends of the planks. W hen we take these facts into acc ount, it seems that there was not necessarily a chrono logy in which vera ndas began without a kamachi and ended by acqum ng one.

Entering from the Doma Th e route tha t gives access via the doma to the raised floor of the interior part of the house is for family use. Minka, the style of Japanese rural domestic ar chitect ur e whose development reached it s peak in the early modern era, bro ught toge ther three major floor types-the earthen floor , the board floor, and the tatami floor- whose lineages had arisen in different eras an d amo ng different classes . T he doma of such a fa rmhouse bears the imprint of some very long-sta ndi ng traditions , in terms of both architectural style and the assoiated do mestic lifestyle; indeed, those traditions date all the way back to the eart hen floors of primitive and ancient dwell ings like pit houses . Thus, we can race how hist orical changes in minka architecture were influenced by such th ings as the far ming and domestic activities closely associated with the doma , the convent ions related to entering the ho use proper from the doma, and the structu re of the rai sed floor itself. It is t hought that pi t ho uses and ground- level houses we re originally eart hen-floored throughout and later acquired a pa rtial ra ised floor. There are two possible ways in which this co uld have happened . According to one heory, buildings with rai sed floors already existed for such purposes as storing food, and wooden floors were ado pted in dwellings in imita tion of th ese structures because they were cleaner, fir st by the upper cla ss an d eventually

017 THE EN TR AN CE SILL

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by th e common peo ple . T he other the ory is th at rai sed floo rs de veloped gra dually from various prac tices which, under th e influence of a range of geographica l condi tions and living hab its, had been adopte d to make dw elling s mo re co mfo rta ble, suc h as spreadi ng st ra w or ch aff o n t he gro un d fo r warmt h, or laying down row s of sp lit bamb oo. Both th eo ries are plau sibl e, an d there is som e evid ence for both in the remains of historic stru ctures . In so me minka th at have been restored to the ir original st ate, such as the old SaW house in M iyag i Prefecture, th e livin g room (za sh iki) and kitchen (katte) areas have floor joists (neda '') of asso rted timb ers overla id with planks roughly hewn w ith a n adze (cbo na "] , In th e area whe re one ste ps onto the board floor from the d oma, the end s of th e boards are left exp osed, together with th e ends of the floor joists. One ca n almost picture th e process in which, as floor s were mad e higher and finishing techniques improved , facing timbers wo uld eve nt ua lly be fitted across th e ends of th e bo ards . In th e light of this exa mple, the agarikam achi seems to have been a finishin g touch to ensure that th e edge of th e floor reta ine d its sha pe and to give it a neat appearance.

The Essence of the Agarikamachi I have gon e to so me lengths to trace the origins of the agarikamachi in technica l factors such as th e idea l place me nt of material s or sit es, durability, and convenience. And yet we have still not capt ured its essence. For th ere remains a puzzle: why is the entr ance sill so mu ch thicker than ot her kam achi? The memb ers of a door or shoji fra me, for example, are never made thicker ' th an is necessary for technical reaso ns, yet agarikamachi may be mad e with very thick cross-sections, especially from top to bottom. Why sho uld this be th e case? T he CENTRAL PIL LA R (§ I 4) gai ne d a thick cross-secti on because, as th e m inka' s center both st ru cturally and sp atially , it was exp ected to provide sym bolic expression of the social an d economic rise of its occupants. H ow -

T he ar ea whe re the la rge m ultipurpose livin g room (hi ro ma) is ente red from the doma in the old Saro hou se (Kakuda City, Mi yagi Pr ef., mid - to late eig hte en t h century ). A goo d ex ample o f the features of the old type of m inlea with a birom agata room p lan. On e c a n sen se th e s im p le ~;'~I~." pl easure tha t th e oc cu pants mu st ha ve ta ken in hav ing a hiroma floor rais ed of f th e gro und. Note that at th is sta ge t here was no kamachi a t the poi nt of entrance .

018 BO UN DARY SPAC ES

ever, in Japanese arc hitect ure it is rare for a horizontal mem ber to take on a heightened sym bo lic ro le in this way. T here are cases of th ick tr an sverse tie beams (hari ") made of crooked tree trunks spann ing the great space under the roof truss which unites the doma, livin g room, and ki tchen are as of a m in ka. T he heavy lin tels known as sashikamoi, w h ich are inserted when omitt ing a str uctural post to allow a more ope n construction, ca n also be unusually thick . But alt hough the crooked beams are rea lly being used for effect, th ey can be justified as making use of natural materia ls, and even the thickest sashikam oi is still wi thin reason. How, then, ca n the seemingly ex treme case of the agarikamachi be exp lained? The entrance h all platfo rm and the poi nt of entry from the doma are bo undary spaces, or areas link ing the ex terior and interior of th e hou se. Co uld th e ent rance sill hav e gained its exaggerate d size as a symbol t ha t de notes th e str ucture of a boundary? But a veranda fulfills the co nd itions of a boundary space equa lly well, and yet one neve r sees extremely thi ck engamachi. I think we can make th e fo llowing distinction. A veranda is a boundary space where one comes and goes merely as a m atter of convenience. But the sbihidai and th e dom a have a larger ro le: they ha ve th e function and the symbolic weig ht of a formal entrance hall , and as such they are associa ted wi th receiving guests. Expressions of sta tus are th us requ ired, and per haps th is sets rhe stage for going to extremes as a socia l co nvention. The agarikamachi can be said to occ upy a uniq ue posi tion in o ur consideratio n of Japanese-sty le bo undary spaces . For this one member has become a locus of many meanings- as seen, for example, in the etiquette of bowing while sea ted or sta nding, in the rela tio nship between indoor and o utdoor footwear, and in the choice of floori ng material-while at the same time creating a richly nuance d ambience.

019 TH E ENTR ANCE SILL

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THE SHOE-REMOVING STONE kutsunugi-ishi (var. kutsunugii: A stone plac ed at the po int where one steps up to an entrance hall or veranda, erc., to allow one to remove and leave one's foo twear, and to assist in step ping up to the higher level. (as defined in Kohugo Daijiten, Shogakukan )

The Name Says It All . . . Or Does It? A shoe -remo ving stone is a stone placed as a step between an earthen floor at gro und level and the raised floor of a structure; as t he name suggests, it is where one removes, leaves, and pu ts on one 's foo twear. Although th ere are sub tleties invo lved in its design, such as th e proper height relati ve to th e floo r, or whether its upper sur face should be flat, and also in choosing a sto ne whose size and at mos phere are ap propriate to the kind of visitors one expects, one migh t th ink th at the meanin g of th e term itself is self-evide nt . And yet shoe-removing sto nes vary greatly in appearance. O n looking closely, one senses that there is something more to them than just a place for taking off one's shoes. For example, in houses of traditional Japanese design where one can step down from the VERANDA (§ 0 4 ) into a garden, sometimes one or two natural

The shoe-removing stone at the old Miyazaki hou se in Orne City , Tok yo Metropo lit an Area . T he ho use, a Na tio na l Im porta nt Cultural Propert y bu ilt in the early 1800s, ha s been re located a nd res t o red as a n ordinary mountain farmh ouse very typical of the district .

020 ~ O U NUA J( Y

SPACES

sto nes are positioned beside the shoe-removi ng stone in a way th at seems to have some meaning. The longer one studies them, the more convinced one becomes that th ese additio nal sto nes have some connec tion with th e k utsunugi-ishi.

Stepping up to the Floor and the Rol e of the Shoe-Removing Stone There ar e two ways to approach the raised floors found in most traditional Japan ese houses . O ne is to mo ve onto the higher level after first ent ering the interior of the bu ilding, e.g., in an entrance ha ll or doma . The other is to gain access to the ra ised floor directl y fro m outsid e the hou se-usu all y the garden - by way of a ver anda or similar str uct ur e. A floor that is dire ctly accessible fro m outside th e hou se, being exposed to th e exter ior, need s to be higher th an it would if it were completely enclosed and, becau se of the extra height, a k utsun ugi-ishi is alwa ys needed as a step. Ind oors, th ere is generally no kutsunugi-ishi pro vided; thi s is probably because th e floor tend s to be lower, an d th ere is sometimes a low agarien ". (a wooden floor of intermediate height in an entryway) in front of the EN T RANCE SI LL ( §0 2) . Where a shoe-removing stone is pr esent indoors, it ten ds to be low and symbolic. Rather th an serve as a step, it seems to signa l that one should remove one's shoes and to mark where th ey shou ld be placed, thus symbolizing th e change of footw ear and the indoo r/outdoor bou ndary. Hence, the stone serves almost as a kind of kekkai, ". a marker fixi ng the bound s of a sacred plac e. This dua l significa nce of the hu tsunugi-isbi, as a step an d as a boundary marker, is perh aps seen mos t clearly at a tea ho use .

Achieving the Desired Effect at the Tea house Entrance A soan "