What is Japanese about a Japanese House?

A surprising intellectual leap in housing design took place in Japan during the 14th century. This was an idea so powerful that it resonated for the next 600 years, and still retains enough influence in japan as shown in the houses in this book. This intellectual leap sought to “eliminate the inessential," and seek the beauty in unembellished humble things. It sought spaciousness in deliberately small spaces, and a feeling of eternity in fragile and temporary materials. A house's interior was not to be just protected from nature, but to be integrated with nature in harmony. Influential Zen Buddhist priests in the Muromachi and Momoyama Periods articulated this ideal so well that thought leaders in many fields followed it, and the entire Japanese society aspired to it. What resulted were homes that speak to the soul and seem to hold time still. They provide a quiet simple base from which to deal with the world.

Around the time that European and English homes were becoming crammed with exotic bric-a-brac collected from the newly established colonies, Japanese Zen priests were sweeping away even the furniture from their homes. Out also went any overt decorations. What was left was a simple flexible space that could be used according to the needs of the hour. At night the bedrolls were taken from deep oshirc cupboards, and during the day they were replaced, making space for meals, work, play and entertaining. This “lightness” was in part a response to Japan’s frequent earthquakes, and in part to the Buddhist teachings about the transient nature of all things. It is interesting to note that this ephemerality is not reflected in the architectural tradition in India, China or Korea, the three countries from where Buddhism arrived in Japan.

Wood is the preferred building material in Japan. The country's Shinto roots have inculcated a deep understanding of and respect for nature. Japanese carpenters have perfected techniques of drawing out the intrinsic beauty of wood. Craftsmen often feel, smell and sometimes even taste wood before purchasing it. Although stone is available in abundance in mountainous Japan, it was traditionally used for the foundations of temples, castles and, to a limited extent, for homes and warehouses. Even brick buildings, when first built in Ginza around 1870, stayed untenanted for a long time, because people preferred to live in well ventilated wooden buildings.

Taditional Japanese builders designed houses from the inside out, the way modern architects professed to do until about two decades ago. A house's exterior evolved from its plan, rather then being forced into pre-conceived symmetrical forms. Bruno Taut, a German architect trained at Bauhaus, and who came to Japan in 1933, claimed that "Japanese architecture has always been modern." The Bauhaus mantras of "form follows function” and “less is more,” as well as the “modern" ideas of modular grids, prefabrication and standardization had long been part of Japanese building traditions. Around the time when Leonardo da Vinci was developing a system of dimensions that scaled the human body for use in architecture, Japanese craftsmen standardized the dimensions of a tatami mat to 90 x 180 centimeters, which was considered adequate for a Japanese person to sleep on. Every dimension in a Japanese house relates to the module of a tatami mat. For example, the height of fusuma doors is usually 180 centimeters. The width of a structural post is usually one-tenth or one-fifth of 90 centimeters, and the post’s bevel is one-seventh or one-tenth of its width. Thus, as in da Vinci’s model, the proportions and scale of a traditional Japanese house can be considered to flow from the dimensions of the human body. The houses shown in this book are a wonderful reminder that there are other alternatives to "big is beautiful,” and that eternity is not about permanent materials. Living in the "condensed" world—Japan's population is half the size of the US, but it occupies a land area about 30 times smaller—the Japanese have developed a unique understanding of space. An ikebana arrangement charges the area in and around itself, and that space becomes an integral part of the design. The arrangement would not be nearly as effective without this empty space. One of the most famous buildings in Japan is the Taien tea hut built by Sen no Rikyu, the famous 16th century tea master. This masterpiece of Japanese architecture measures a mere one-and-three-quarters of a tatami mat, or approximately three square meters. This tiny house gives an example of how small houses do not have to take the form of the proverbial "rabbit hutches”, but can be beautiful and open like the Kamikozawa home and the house owned by Toru Baba and Keiko Ason. After all, how much space does a man need? Traditional Japanese houses have a special relationship with nature. In extreme cases, the best part of a lot was given over to the garden, and the house designed on the land left over. Entire shoji walls can be pushed aside, creating an intimate unity with the garden. The engawa corridor modulates the relationship between the house's interior and exterior. In summer, it belongs to the outdoors, while in winter and at night it is closed off to form part of the interior space as shown in the Zan Yu So villa. As pointed out by architect Antonin Raymond, who came to Japan to work with Frank Lloyd Wright. “The Japanese house is surprisingly free. At night and in the winter, one can shut out the world and the interior becomes a box divided up into rooms. Then in the summer, one opens up all the storm doors, the sliding screens and sliding doors and the house becomes as free as a tent through which air gently passes." Made of wood, mud and straw, the traditional house is also environmentally friendly and recyclable. Even old tatami mats can be shredded and composted. Another facet of the Japanese house, and indeed of Japanese life, is the dichotomy between the private and the public. In narrow but deep townhouses like Kondaya Genbei, public dealings were confined to the house's street side, while the rooms beyond were reserved for domestic life. The Japanese word for depth is oku, so a wife is referred to as oku-san, “the lady who inhabits a house’s depths." How far into the home a guest penetrates depends on his relationship with the family. A house has a "public face", which may or may not convey anything about the hidden interior. Powerful feudal lords often chose to live in the simple, understated Sukiya-style spaces, while visitors would only see the ornate staterooms. However, the private areas allowed for little pnvacy, since mere paper screens or thin walls separated the rooms from each other. This fact has probably contributed to the deeply ingrained sociable manners in Japanese people, especially women.