Glossary

A ceiling surfaced with thin strips of wood or bamboo woven in a plaited pattern, used in tea rooms and often set against other ceiling types in the same room.

In traditional Okinawan houses, the space under deep eaves carried on outer posts around the building, shading it from strong sun and rain and linking the interior with the yard.

The paved section of riverbed immediately below a dam, surfaced with stone or concrete to take the impact of falling water and prevent scour; often placed between a main dam and its sub-dam.

A render mixed with aggregate and washed before it sets so that the stones show at the surface, widely used on modern exteriors.

A storehouse whose walls are built of horizontal timbers, usually triangular in section, stacked and interlocked at the corners without corner posts; Nara-period examples survive at the Shosoin and temple treasuries.

A farmhouse form of western Toyama, especially the Tonami area: a large gable-entry gabled roof turned to the front, its gable wall showing a grid of ties and posts against white plaster; records usually write the name in katakana.

A small open shelter of posts and a roof without walls, built in gardens for rest and viewing; usually with a pyramidal or hipped roof. Also written with other characters.

The agency of Japan's education and culture ministry that administers cultural-property protection, the arts and religious affairs; founded in 1968 and based in Kyoto since 2023.

The Buddha who presides over the Western Pure Land and is believed to receive the dying into it; images and paintings of him multiplied in Japan as Pure Land devotion spread from the Heian period.

A short strut that flares at its foot like a shamisen plectrum, set on a beam or tie beam to carry the ridge or an upper member; used in gable framing and as an intercolumnar support.

A red-brown pigment of iron oxide, applied to posts, lattices and other woodwork for colour and said to help preserve the wood; Fukiya in Takahashi, Okayama, is known as a centre of production.

A stone finish made by striking the surface with a bishan hammer, whose head bears rows of small pyramidal points, leaving an even field of fine pits that gives a uniform, non-slip texture.

A large bronze temple bell hung in a bell tower and struck with a swinging beam to mark time and services; its parts, such as the dragon-head loop, bosses, inscription panels and striking seats, have names, and its form and inscriptions help date it.

A dam in which a thin reinforced-concrete watertight wall is supported by a row of buttresses on its downstream side; lighter and less material-hungry than a gravity dam but complex to build, with few examples in Japan.

A tuffaceous building stone quarried around Mount Nokogiri in southern Boso, Chiba; easy to work and fire-resistant, it was used for foundations, retaining walls, fences and storehouses.

A building or room for the tea ceremony, sized by the number of mats it holds and fitted with its own entrances and preparation space.

A triangular dormer gable set on the slope of a roof rather than at its end, used to give a keep or a large roof a marked front.

A display shelf beside the tokonoma made of two boards set at staggered heights; one of the formal fixtures of the shoin style, often combined with a cupboard above and another below.

The stone laid horizontally along the top of a wall or a tunnel portal, throwing rainwater clear of the structure below and finishing the line of the elevation.

A covered watercourse carried beneath an embankment or a road, built on railways to take stream water under the line.

The pair of timbers crossing above each end of a shrine ridge, recorded together with the short billets laid along it and a quick way of telling a shrine hall from a Buddhist one.

An official who governed a territory on behalf of its lord, collecting taxes and keeping order for the shogunate, a daimyo or a hatamoto, whose house survives as the local seat of administration.

A platform built as a box of cut stone: a bottom course, upright posts and facing slabs, and a coping course along the top; used under high-ranking Buddhist halls, pagodas and stone monuments.

A method of carrying the beams out beyond the wall and setting a purlin on their ends to give a deep overhang, used to give the front of a townhouse weight and standing.

A bracket set that projects arm and bearing blocks one step forward from the wall to carry the eave beam at its tip; also called hitotesaki, it ranks above three-block sets and below two- and three-step brackets.

A timber lattice fixed so that it projects beyond the outer wall over a window or house front, used on townhouse façades and gatehouse rooms to admit light and air while screening the interior.

A variant of the three-bearing-block bracket in which a bracket arm along the wall and one projecting forward cross on the large bearing block, each carrying bearing blocks at its ends; one step more elaborate than the flat three-block type.

A wall built mainly of earth and capped with a small roof of tiles, usually finished in lime plaster; tsuijibei and neribei are named variants distinguished by how the earth is laid.

A bowl-shaped hollow on the surface of a limestone plateau, formed where rock along the paths by which rainwater sinks underground is dissolved or where a cave below collapses; regarded as a basic element of karst landscape.

The unfloored part of a house at ground level, used for cooking and work, paired with the raised rooms; in a townhouse the through-passage of this kind has a name of its own.

A fire-resistant method of building in which a timber frame is encased in thick earthen walls finished with lime plaster, used for storehouses and also for shops and reception rooms.

Roofing with thin copper sheets; light and durable, it develops a green patina over time and is common on shrine and temple roofs, cusped gables, canopies and purification pavilions.

The architectural manner introduced from China for the rebuilding of Todaiji, using arms inserted through the columns and saucer-mouldings under the bracket blocks in a boldly scaled composition.

A strongly curved beam used to span between two points at different heights, typically joining a front canopy to the body of a hall.

A stone finish in which the edges of each dressed block are cut back to a narrow flat margin while the centre is left rough, used at the key points of tunnel portals and stone walls.

A shrine building for displaying votive pictures (ema) presented by worshippers, also called emado, emadokoro or gakuden; usually open-sided and often doubling as a rest shelter.

The narrow boarded strip outside the rooms of a house, mediating between interior and garden, and called by another name when it lies beyond the shelter of the roof.

A brickwork bond alternating a course of stretchers with a course of headers, so that bricks run through the thickness of the wall and tie it together.

A dam built across a mountain valley or torrent to hold back sediment and prevent disasters downstream; of stone or concrete, it is combined with a spillway notch, sub-dam and apron.

The period of Tokugawa rule, subdivided in records into early, middle, later and final phases, and the period that appears most often in the date fields of architectural records.

A roof with almost no pitch, usually a reinforced-concrete slab, which can be used as a roof terrace and is edged with a parapet; common on modern Western-style buildings and industrial plants.

A space rising through two or more storeys with no intervening floor, found in the earth-floored areas and main rooms of houses, inside storehouses and in the entrance halls of Western-style buildings.

A boat-shaped bracket block set directly on top of a post to carry the beam above, the simplest form of bracketing without bearing blocks, used on houses, shrine buildings and other plain structures.

A ceiling raised along its centre line and sloping down to either side, like the inside of an upturned boat in section; used over the core of Buddhist halls and in tea rooms and sukiya-style rooms.

A bell-shaped bronze chime hung from the eave corners of pagodas and Buddhist halls and from the finial spire, sounding in the wind; examples are also excavated from ancient temple sites.

Tiles of semicircular section laid face-down along the very top of a roof ridge to cap it against rain; walls and small buildings sometimes have a simple ridge of these tiles alone.

The niche of a stone shrine or pagoda hollowed out to hold an image, set between base and roof, sometimes with the figure carved directly inside.

An opening or door fitted with slanted slats set at intervals to let air through while keeping out rain and views; used for ventilators in storehouse gables, doors, and the upper parts of Western-style buildings.

The outer area of a Buddhist hall, where worshippers stand, paired with the inner sanctuary and divided from it by bracketing and transoms.

A lower roof leaning against the main body of a building and the space beneath it, housing verandas, canopies and lesser rooms, and recorded by the face on which it stands.

The onion-shaped finial set on the newel posts of a railing or a bridge, and the mark that names the railing type it belongs to.

Buildings of the early Meiji period in which Japanese carpenters imitated Western appearance, combining traditional structure with Western motifs, common for offices, schools and banks.

A coarse-grained plutonic rock of quartz, feldspar and mica; hard and barely absorbent, it is widely used for gateposts, stone walls, bridges, retaining walls and foundations, and is also called mikage-ishi.

A ceiling formed by a grid of moulded battens with panels laid over them, used in the inner sanctuaries of Buddhist halls and in the formal reception rooms of houses.

In the Edo period, men granted samurai status while living in the countryside rather than the castle town; common in Tosa and Satsuma, their houses combined elements of farmhouse and samurai residence.

A shrine form in which the main hall and the worship hall are joined into one building by a connecting chamber, used for the shrines enshrining Tokugawa Ieyasu.

A carved board hung from the peak of a gable to cover the ends of the ridge and purlins, made in named shapes and one of the places where design shows.

The thick plastered band run around the top of a storehouse wall below the eaves, sealing the junction of wall and eaves against fire and rain and, often in black or white plaster, giving the building a strong outline.

The bargeboards fixed in an inverted V along the gable end of a gabled or hip-and-gable roof, and by extension the gable they frame; named variants include chidori-hafu and kara-hafu.

The flared wall enclosing the lower part of a bell tower or similar building, named for its resemblance to a pleated hakama skirt; a bell tower with one looks two-storeyed from outside.

A gate with eight bracing posts, four before and four behind the four main posts, making twelve posts in all; common for guardian-king gates at temples, it is also written yatsuashimon.

A staircase whose treads sit above drawers and cupboards, combining stair and storage so that no floor area is wasted in a narrow townhouse.

A gabled roof with the top of each gable clipped back into a small hip, common on modern Western-style buildings and houses, sometimes combined with dormer windows.

A European timber-frame construction, and the look derived from it, in which posts, beams and braces show on the outer wall with the panels between filled with plaster or brick; in Japan it appears mostly as decoration on gables.

A low veranda projecting in front of a shrine canopy, set below the steps and one level lower than the veranda that runs round the hall.

A low boarded floor laid in front of a shrine sanctuary, at the foot of the steps or under the entrance canopy, usually with a hamaen edge; it serves as a place for rites before the deity.

Wall or fence cladding of boards set edge to edge in a flat plane rather than overlapping; vertical boarding is recorded as tate-hameita-bari. It contrasts with overlapping shitami-itabari.

A concealed lever beam set in the roof space that lifts the eaves by leverage, allowing a deep overhang without relying on bracketing.

A band-shaped decorative metal fitting running across the planks of a gate or storehouse door to hold them together, its ends often cut into arrow-feather or floral shapes.

The direction at right angles to a building's ridge, the direction in which the beams span, or its length; paired with the ridge-direction length to state a building's size.

A direct retainer of the Tokugawa shogunate ranking high enough for audience with the shogun, who governed a fief through an administrative house and a deputy.

A subsidiary post set in front of, behind or diagonally behind the main posts of a gate, fence or torii to support them; depending on the gate type it may carry the roof or merely brace the posts.

The practice of raising a building and moving it whole to another position without taking it apart, recorded in date fields and descriptions as part of a building's history.

A free-standing screen wall placed between the gate and the main house of an Okinawan residence, blocking the view in from the street and marking the threshold of the compound; most surviving examples are stone.

An arrangement in which the entrance is placed on the long side of a building, under the run of the eaves rather than at the gable end.

A small roof projecting over an outer wall, doorway or window to keep off rain and sun; in shrine and temple architecture the word also denotes the lower-roofed zone surrounding the central core.

A short diagonal member joining two horizontal timbers that meet at right angles, usually at a corner, forming a triangle that stops the frame from distorting in plan.

A small shrine housing a deity or image, set within an estate or by a roadside, in stone examples cut with base, niche and roof from separate blocks; distinct from a memorial hall.

In the Edo period, the house designated in a post town to lodge or rest daimyo on alternate attendance, imperial envoys and shogunate officials; run by local notables and equipped with formal entrances and raised reception rooms.

A farmhouse form of central and southern Nagano: a large gable-entry house under a gently pitched gabled roof on a near-square plan, with a ridge ornament called suzume-odori crowning the front gable.

A tunnel cross-section with a semicircular arch above and near-vertical side walls below, adopted as the standard single-track profile by Japan's government railways in the Meiji period.

The building in a temple where the abbot lives and receives visitors, its six-room plan becoming a standard that influenced domestic architecture as well.

A stone monument composed of base, square body, stepped roof with corner horns called sumikazari, and finial spire; from the medieval period it was widely erected as a memorial or grave marker.

A single-storey Buddhist monument with a cylindrical body under a square roof and finial spire, usually in stone and linked to Lotus Sutra devotion; its form is said to underlie the upper storey of the tahōtō.

A designation given to archaeological and historical remains such as shell mounds, tombs, palace and castle sites and former residences that hold high historical or academic value.

A pyramidal roof in which four slopes meet at a single point, with no ridge, used on halls and towers of roughly square plan.

A roof laid from thin layers of cypress bark, flexible enough to follow curved surfaces and long used on shrine halls and reception buildings.

A tiled roof laid with flat pan tiles and half-round cap tiles alternating, heavier than pantiling and used on temples, shrines and buildings of standing.

The timber of the Japanese cypress, valued for durability and workability and long the leading wood for shrine and temple buildings and for carved Buddhist statues.

The ornament set behind a Buddhist image to represent radiance, either a disc behind the head or a full-body mandorla, made in wood or gilt bronze and painted or pierced.

The era from the move of the capital to Heian-kyo in 794 to the rise of the warrior government at Kamakura in the late twelfth century, between the Nara and Kamakura periods.

A shrine building one bay wide at the front; records prefix the term to the roof form, as in one-bay nagare-zukuri, and it is common for small main halls and subsidiary shrines.

A landscape shaped by local livelihoods and climate, such as terraced fields or a fishing village, selected by the Minister at the request of a prefecture or municipality as particularly important.

Clothing, tools, dwellings and other everyday objects designated by the Minister as particularly important for understanding how the daily life of the Japanese people has changed.

A gable-end framing in which two inclined members set in an inverted V on a beam carry the ridge beam, with a short post at the centre; a plain, early form common on shrine buildings.

A tower standing in a dam or reservoir to draw water off, fitted with intakes at several heights so that the level can be chosen according to conditions.

An intangible folk tradition that the Commissioner for Cultural Affairs has selected for documentation. Selection secures a record of the practice but is not a designation and imposes no legal restrictions.

A curved fence of bamboo or wood leaned against the foot of a townhouse wall or boundary wall toward the street, protecting the base from splashing rain, mud and knocks while shaping the streetscape.

The corridor-like zone around a reception room or building between the outer veranda and the inner rooms; often floored with tatami, it is found in castles, shoin halls and the reception rooms of large houses.

A square hearth sunk into the floor of a farmhouse for heating and cooking, set in the earthen floor or a boarded room, and recorded under more than one name.

A retaining wall built of stacked stone, used for castles and for terracing house plots, and described along three axes: how the stones are worked, how the courses run, and how the corner is built.

A stone wall found in eastern Kochi, in towns such as Nahari and Kiragawa in Muroto: beach or river stones laid up in courses, sometimes capped with a small tiled roof, to shield houses from strong wind and rain.

A projection built out over the stone base of a turret or keep, with an opening in its floor for striking directly at anyone climbing below.

A designation given by the national government to tangible cultural property judged important, covering both architecture and fine arts, and counted so that the total includes National Treasures.

A national designation for customs, folk performing arts and folk techniques judged particularly important, made without certifying any individual holder of the tradition.

A townscape district selected by the national government from among preservation districts established by municipalities, protecting a whole quarter rather than individual buildings.

The quantity recorded for a designated or registered cultural property, written with a counter that varies by the kind of object and entered on the certificate of designation.

A roof that is gabled above and hipped below, so the triangular gable appears only in the upper part while the eaves run round all four sides beneath it.

A method of wooden sculpture in which the core of head and body is carved from a single block, even if arms or knees are added separately; characteristic of early Heian statues.

The hand gestures of Buddhist images, each expressing a vow or quality of the figure; forms such as the meditation, welcoming and wisdom-fist gestures help identify who a statue represents.

A town formed in the Warring States period around a temple, mainly of the True Pure Land school, enclosed by moats and earthworks; enjoying privileges akin to a temple precinct, it attracted merchants and craftsmen and prospered as a self-governing town.

The administrative house of a lord without a castle, or of a shogunal deputy, serving as both office and residence and showing rank through its buildings rather than fortifications.

A room, or the inner part of one, whose floor is raised a step above its surroundings as a seat for a person of high rank; it is usually furnished with alcove, shelves and other formal fixtures.

The horizontal beam spanning the tops of a gate's two main posts and tying them together; the kabukimon is the gate type built essentially of this beam and its posts.

A roofless gate formed by two posts joined at the top by a crossbeam called a kabuki; a simple type used as the front or side gate of a residence or a garden entrance.

Deep Jōmon pots of the Middle Jōmon period made mainly along the Shinano River in Niigata, their rims crowned with four large flame-like projections and their bodies covered with raised swirling ridges.

The pair of main posts flanking the doorway of a gate, heavy squared timbers that hang the doors and anchor the composition of a gatehouse or a yakuimon.

A ceiling of flat boards laid without battens or coffers to form a single smooth surface like a mirror; in Zen Buddha halls and elsewhere it often carries a painted dragon.

A two-storey structure built with separate posts for each floor and no posts running through both, used for example when adding an upper floor to a single-storey house.

A plastering technique for storehouse doors and windows in which frame and door edges are built up in stepped layers of lime plaster that interlock when closed, keeping out fire and smoke.

A method of building out over a cliff, slope or water on tall posts that carry the floor; the stage of the main hall of Kiyomizudera in Kyoto is the best-known example, and it is also called butai-zukuri.

A plastering finish in which mortar or render is scraped with a spiked tool before it sets, leaving a rough, textured surface; common on modern Western-style buildings.

A low, rounded mound of earth sealed in white plaster at the foot of a building, between the platform and the underfloor; the white dome between the two storeys of a tahoto pagoda bears the same name.

Turning at a right angle, used in records to describe how a wall runs or how buildings join; also written kaneori or described as kagi-no-te.

Soliciting donations widely from the public to fund the building or repair of temples, pagodas, images or bridges; the monks who undertook it were called kanjin hijiri.

Double doors that open outward from the centre to either side, said to be named after the doors of a Buddhist shrine cabinet opened to reveal the image; common on storehouse doorways and windows.

Masonry laid without mortar, the stones held by their own interlocking, and used where water must pass through, as in erosion-control dams and revetments.

Karst terrain in which exposed limestone has been dissolved by rain, leaving remnant pillars and spires standing in ranks, like a flock of sheep or rows of gravestones.

The horizontal member capping the top of a wall, railing or torii, shedding rain and defining the outline; on a torii it is the uppermost lintel.

A plan in which rooms line only one side of a corridor, the other side being the outer wall with windows; common in modern school buildings, dormitories and hospitals for its light and ventilation.

A window whose head is shaped in a flame-like cusped curve, a Zen-manner detail on temple buildings, most often cut into a plastered wall.

A general term for the smaller shrines within a shrine precinct other than the main shrine, including subsidiary and auxiliary shrines, standing around the sanctuary or in a corner of the grounds.

The space between two columns, and the unit used to count them; also a unit of length, so that records give a building as so many bays or so many ken wide.

Stone dressed with a squared face and tapering back for building walls, retaining walls and bridge abutments; uniform in size, it is laid in level or diagonal courses.

A short post set in the interval between columns, capped with a bearing block to support the member above; a simple intercolumnar support common in wayō buildings and, with the frog-leg strut, one of the main forms.

The direction parallel to a building's ridge, or its length in that direction, given in bays or metres and paired with the beam-span dimension to state the size of a building.

A deciduous tree of the elm family (Japanese zelkova) and its timber; hard and handsomely grained, it is widely used for shrine and temple posts, gates, veranda boards and alcove finishes. Some great trees are designated natural monuments.

A burial mound of the Kofun period whose plan joins a round rear mound to a squared front mound in a keyhole shape, with the main burial in the round part; the largest is about 500 m long.

The carved end of a tie beam or rainbow beam projecting beyond a post; it spread with the Daibutsuyō and Zen styles, and in the early modern period often took the form of lions, elephants and other creatures.

A method of building stone walls with faces dressed to near-hexagonal shapes and fitted together in a pattern like a tortoise shell or honeycomb; laborious, it is used at conspicuous corners and fronts.

A Western roof truss with a single central post and diagonal braces forming triangles, able to span a wide interior without intermediate columns.

A stone wall whose faces are cut precisely so that the stones meet almost without visible joints, the most finely worked of the walling methods.

A veranda whose boards are laid across its width rather than along it, common as the walkway encircling a shrine hall and usually recorded together with its railing.

Gable decoration in which the triangular gable of a hip-and-gable roof is filled with a grid lattice backed by boards; also called kitsune-goshi and widely used on temples, shrines and houses.

A short diagonal member set across the corner between a post and a beam, or a wall and the eaves, to prop up an overhang and stiffen the frame against racking.

A room for growing koji mould on steamed rice, built as a closed, heavily insulated chamber to keep warmth and humidity; found in sake breweries and miso works.

A low fence of posts or lattice standing in front of the projecting lattice or wall of a townhouse, framing the frontage and keeping passers-by at a distance.

A small raised roof set on top of the main ridge, with openings in its sides for letting out smoke, ventilating and admitting light; common on silkworm-raising farmhouses, breweries and workshops.

Boarding fixed to the lower part, or dado, of a wall to protect it from rain and knocks; widely used on the outer walls of storehouses and townhouses and on the inner walls of school corridors and classrooms.

A small open shelter in a tea garden, rarely more than two metres across, where guests sit and wait before being called in to the tea room.

A relief picture modelled in lime plaster with a trowel, placed where it shows on a storehouse gable, sometimes with the plasterer's name recorded.

A decorative metal cover placed over the head of a nail fixing the horizontal trim, often bearing a family crest and ranged where the rank of a room is displayed.

A small doorway set beside or within the main doors of a gate, allowing people to pass without opening the main leaves.

The lattice of fine battens joined vertically, horizontally and diagonally in shoji, transoms and lattice doors, and the joinery technique that forms geometric patterns with them.

A roofed space built in front of the doorway of a storehouse, formed by extending the storehouse roof or adding a separate roof, and used for loading, work and shelter from rain.

A veranda whose boards run lengthwise along it, common around the reception rooms of houses and often serving as a link between separate buildings.

The building in a temple given over to cooking and to the daily life of the monks, combining an earth floor with living rooms and linked to the main hall by a corridor.

The building in a temple for storing sutras, also called kyōdō; some contain a revolving octagonal bookcase, the rinzō, which is believed to earn the merit of reading all the scriptures when turned.

The part of a shrine or temple front where the roof is carried forward to shelter the place where worshippers stand, recorded with the number of bays it spans.

A gate with a gabled roof over the main posts and smaller roofs set crosswise over the supporting posts behind, keeping the roof small so that the approach can be watched from above.

A railing set along the outer edge of a veranda or a bridge, named in records according to whether it carries knobbed finials or is framed like bracketing.

A beam curved gently upward along its length, used inside temple and shrine buildings and across gable ends, and often carved.

A decorative cut-out panel set into the sides of altar platforms, pedestals, bases and doors, its outline curving in a cusped arch above and flaring at the foot.

A shrine hall form with a gabled body entered at the gable end and a canopy added across its front, usually of a single bay, represented by Kasuga Taisha in Nara.

A roof that slopes in two directions from a single ridge, closing each end of the building with a triangular gable.

A roof of thin split wooden shingles laid in overlapping layers, lighter in effect than cypress bark and used on shrine halls and tea-influenced buildings.

A roof of thickly layered grasses such as miscanthus or reed, so demanding to maintain that many surviving examples are recorded as covered provisionally with sheet metal.

The short round billets laid across the ridge of a shrine hall at even intervals, recorded together with the crossed finials and sometimes counted.

A structural block set on a beam to carry the load above, splayed towards its base, and one of the places where temple and shrine carpenters concentrate their carving.

The assembly of blocks and arms set above a column to carry the eaves and step them outward, named by how many steps it projects.

A ceiling treatment in which no ceiling is fitted at all and the underside of the roof is finished and left in view, so that rafters and boarding become the design.

A repair in which a building is taken apart member by member, damaged parts are treated, and the whole is reassembled, often uncovering inscriptions that date the structure.

Gold beaten to an extreme thinness, laid over lacquer to gild images and interiors, and recorded either as gilding or as gold leaf applied over lacquer.

The bodhisattva of compassion, represented in a basic form and in many variant forms with multiple faces or arms, and also as an attendant of Amida.

The era from the founding of the warrior government at Kamakura in the late twelfth century to the fall of the Kamakura shogunate in 1333, between the Heian and Nanbokuchō periods.

A townhouse of the merchant quarters, narrow at the street and deep behind, standing shoulder to shoulder with its neighbours and often organised around a through-passage of beaten earth.

Buddhist images carved directly into a natural cliff or exposed rock face; the Usuki group in Oita is the best-known example, and the Bungo region has a concentration of late Heian works.

A horizontal member spanning the top of a window or doorway to carry the wall above; on storehouses and townhouses it is sometimes shaped like a rainbow beam as a decorative feature.

A sliding door of boards faced with thin horizontal battens at even intervals, used around formal reception rooms and at service gates for its plain, restrained appearance.

A roof with the ridge set off-centre so that one slope is short and the other long, common on small ancillary buildings and recorded under more than one name.

A square enclosure set at a castle gate that forces the approach to turn at a right angle, bounded by two gates and stone walls so that anyone inside is exposed on three sides.

A post squared only in part, keeping the rounded surface and traces of bark at its four corners, used in tea rooms and relaxed reception rooms between the log and the squared column.

A small shrine form with no front steps; a shelf projects in front of the sanctum floor instead. Most examples are one- or three-bay nagare-zukuri halls serving as subsidiary shrines.

A shop built with the fire-resistant construction of a storehouse, open across the street front while its outer walls are sealed in plaster.

A bracket set with an arm laid on the main block and three smaller blocks ranged along it, the basic form without projection, used widely on shrine halls and gates.

A narrow horizontal ledge run around an outer wall partway up its height, throwing off rainwater that runs down the face so that the wall below stays dry; when made of tiles it is called mizukiri-gawara.

Rows of small tiles fixed horizontally partway up the plastered walls of storehouses and houses to throw off rainwater running down the wall and protect it; characteristic of Kochi.

The preparation space attached to a tea room where utensils are washed and set out; in a farmhouse the same word can name the room used for water work.

A bracket projecting from a wall to carry a hood, a canopy or a ledge, made in timber, iron, stone or plaster and often ornamented.

A flower-like motif of four or five rounded lobes, used in family crests, door pulls and the ornament of gateposts; also written with other characters.

A pent roof and enclosure wrapped around the main body of a Buddhist hall or pagoda below its eaves; from outside it adds a tier of roof, making the building look as if it had an extra storey.

A lattice window in the attendants' room of a gatehouse or similar space, allowing those inside to watch the street while remaining hard to see from outside, and giving the gate a solid appearance.

A wooden tablet placed at the ridge when a building is raised, recording the date and the carpenters involved, and sometimes designated together with the building itself.

The horizontal timber running along the top of a roof frame in the direction of the ridge, carrying the upper ends of the rafters; the focus of the ridge-raising rite and often inscribed with the building date.

A gate carried on two main posts alone, without supporting posts behind, plain in construction and used where a wall is pierced or a garden entered.

A window fitted with heavy vertical bars, set in the outer wall of a gatehouse to keep watch on the road and mark the estate as one of rank.

A window of narrow vertical openings cut into the plastered upper wall of a townhouse or farmhouse front, its bars themselves coated in clay and plaster, used for light and air.

The most widespread torii form, with an upswept top lintel over a second lintel, a tie beam whose ends project beyond the posts, and a central strut holding the name tablet.

A post standing free outside the gable end and carrying the ridge beam directly, used on shrine halls in the shinmei form to support the roof clear of the wall.

A bracket set projecting in three steps to carry the eaves, the deepest of the projecting types and reserved for pagodas, gates and buildings of standing.

A technique of drawing a design in lacquer and sprinkling gold or silver powder onto it before it dries, divided into types by how the surface is finished.

The era of the Ashikaga shogunate in Kyoto, from the 1330s to the expulsion of the last shogun in 1573; its first six decades are often treated separately as the Nanbokuchō period.

A gate built together with rooms to either side, forming a single range across the front of a village headman's or samurai estate.

A horizontal member fixed across the outside of the columns, binding the frame and, in a reception room, marking the formality of the space.

The inner sanctuary of a Buddhist hall, where the principal image is enshrined, paired with the outer area for worshippers and divided from it by bracketing and transoms.

A corridor running through the middle of a building with rooms on both sides, adopted in modern house plans to separate the movement of guests from that of the household.

A wall finish in which flat tiles are fixed to the surface and the joints between them are raised in half-round ridges of lime plaster, most often on the lower part of a wall.

A room for storing clothes and household goods, set behind the reception rooms and sometimes doubling as a bedroom; in large houses a block of its own.

A wall built of alternating layers of roof tiles and clay, capped with a tiled roof; some are plastered over, others leave the tile courses showing as horizontal stripes; used around temples and estates.

Masonry in which stones or blocks are bedded and backed with mortar or concrete so the wall acts as one mass; the opposite of dry walling and common in erosion-control dams, revetments and retaining walls.

A school of Buddhism founded by Nichiren in the Kamakura period that holds the Lotus Sutra to be the one true teaching and stresses chanting its title, Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō; its head temple is Kuonji on Mount Minobu in Yamanashi.

The small entrance of a rustic tea room through which guests enter on their knees, bending low; also written with a single character.

Long dressed stones laid end to end in a line, used as the base of buildings and walls, as the top edging of stone walls and as kerbs along a site.

A beam in a roof frame that rises at the pitch of the roof from the eave beam toward the ridge; by reducing horizontal beams and struts it frees the roof space, as in the upper floors of storehouses and townhouses.

A curved gable formed by lifting part of the eaves line into a bow, set over a canopy or an entrance to mark the front of a building.

A projecting band of stepped mouldings along the top of an outer wall below the eaves; on storehouses it is built up in plaster, and on Western-style buildings it corresponds to the cornice.

A stone wall built from natural stones left almost unworked, so that the faces do not align and the gaps between them are packed with smaller stones.

A horizontal tie passed through holes cut in the posts and wedged tight to lock them together; named by position as head, lintel-level, waist or ground ties.

A stone wall laid in level courses of even height so that the horizontal joints run straight, giving a regular face and widely used on dams and estate walls.

A townhouse construction in which the side walls and the eaves soffit are sealed in plaster for fire resistance, without the wall thickness of a storehouse and with the street front left open.

The highest tier of protection for tangible cultural property in Japan, given to items already designated as Important Cultural Properties that are judged to be of outstanding value in world culture.

A designation for animals, plants and geological features of high academic value, extending to habitats, native stands and protected natural areas as well as to individual specimens.

A shrine hall form in which the front slope of a gabled roof is carried down and forward to shelter the approach, recorded with the number of front bays prefixed to the name.

A roof, or the part of a building beneath it, attached beside a main block with its ridge set one step lower; it usually houses the kitchen, storerooms or bath.

A heavy diagonal member that passes through a bracket complex and projects outward to carry the eaves, its inner end held down by the roof so that it works as a lever; used in three-step and Zen-style bracketing.

The decorative wings fixed to either side of the bulbous gable strut, spreading outward and usually carved to enrich the gable.

A roof on a plastered storehouse in which a separately framed timber roof covered with tiles or sheet metal sits over the clay-sealed roof beneath, the lower layer resisting fire and the upper shedding rain.

One of the three Sen schools of tea descended from Sen no Rikyu, based at Fushin-an in Kyoto; its tea rooms Fushin-an and Zangetsu-tei have been copied in tea rooms across Japan.

A townhouse form in which a shop block (omoteya) faces the street and a separate residential block stands behind it across an entrance area and courtyard, the two linked together; found in large townhouses of Kyoto and Omi.

The ornamental tile set at the end of a roof ridge, sometimes inscribed with a date that records when the roof itself was worked on.

A transom filled with fine vertical bars set close together like the reed of a loom, used in formal reception rooms and above gate doors.

A shallow thick board set against the wall of a reception room, where a hanging scroll is displayed with flowers or an incense burner before it; regarded as an early form of the tokonoma.

A low wall rising above the roof edge along the top of an outer wall; it encloses flat roofs and was also raised high on façades to hide a pitched roof behind a Western-looking front.

A steel beam built up from plates into an I-shaped section, widely used for railway and road bridges; in Japanese also called bangeta, and most often used as a deck girder carrying the track on top.

A designation for gardens, gorges, coastlines, mountains and other scenic places held to have high artistic or contemplative value, with gardens forming the largest group.

The Buddhist teaching of rebirth in the paradise of Amida, a broad current of faith rather than a single sect, embracing the Jodo and Jodo Shinshu schools among others.

A roof truss with two vertical posts on the tie beam joined at the top by a straining beam, suited to wider spans than the single-post king post truss.

A pair of columns set behind the altar dais in the inner sanctuary of a Buddhist hall, one of the two ways of closing the space behind the image.

A geometric pattern of square spirals formed by lines turned at right angles and linked in series; traced to ancient Chinese bronzes, it appears on ceramics, textiles and architectural ornament.

The opening between the head of a doorway and the ceiling, admitting light and air and serving as a field for carving or fine latticework.

A stone wall laid without even courses, so that the horizontal joints do not run through, allowing stones of differing sizes to be combined.

A small recess set at intervals into the side wall of a tunnel, giving workers inside somewhere to stand clear while a train passes.

A historic site, place of scenic beauty or natural feature that is not designated but has been entered on the national register of cultural properties because it needs measures for preservation and use.

A window filled with square bars or bamboo set at even intervals, used in the flanking bays of shrine halls and across townhouse fronts to pass light and air while blocking the view.

A series of dish-shaped pools stepped one below another, each held in by a rim of calcium carbonate deposited from flowing water; common in limestone caves.

The square base set at the apex of a pyramidal roof or a pagoda, carrying the finial above it and closing the top of the roof.

The garden attached to a tea room, laid out as the path a guest follows before entering, with gates and small shelters set along the way.

A plan dividing the raised floor into six rooms in two rows of three; it is the basic plan of Zen abbots' halls and main halls and is also common in large farmhouses and old family houses.

The framework of beams, posts, purlins and ridge set on top of the walls to carry a roof; Japanese records distinguish the native wagoya from the truss-based yogoya.

A limestone formed from Pleistocene coral reefs and found across the Ryukyu Islands, used for Okinawan walls, screens, castle ramparts and gardens, and responsible for coastal terraces and natural arches.

A torii of the myōjin form with small bracing posts, chigobashira, set before and behind each main post and tied to it; also called a four-legged torii.

A tall gate that looks two-storeyed but has no roof over its lower level, only a balustraded gallery round the upper level beneath a single roof; distinct from the nijumon, which has roofs at both levels.

Tangible cultural property entered on the national register rather than designated, protected through a lighter regime of notification and advice that complements the stricter designation system.

A technique of cutting thin pieces from the iridescent layer of shell and setting them into a lacquer ground to form a pattern that shifts colour with the light.

The descent of Amida Buddha with attendant bodhisattvas to receive a dying believer into the Pure Land, best known as the subject of raigō paintings.

A small opening cut in the wall of a turret or rampart wall for shooting through, made in forms for the bow and for the gun, and sometimes concealed behind plaster.

The path of approach to a shrine or temple, running from the entrance torii or gate to the main hall and often paved and lined with trees or lanterns.

A tiled roof laid with wave-profiled pantiles, lighter than the round-and-flat tiling it replaced and widespread on townhouses and ancillary buildings from the early modern period onward.

A way of building the outer corner of a stone wall, alternating the long and short faces of elongated stones course by course so that the corner locks together.

Thirty deities believed to guard the Lotus Sutra, each taking one day of the month in turn; in Nichiren temples they are enshrined in a banjindō, and are also called simply banjin.

A hinged door framed with stiles and rails, its panels filled with thin boards, lattice or pierced carving; used on temple and shrine halls and gates, and associated with the Zen style.

A ceiling of boards laid over thin battens running in parallel, simpler than the coffered kind and the commonest ceiling in Japanese houses.

A welded tuff quarried mainly at Ishiyama in southern Sapporo, formed from pyroclastic flows of the Shikotsu volcano about 40,000 years ago; easy to cut and fire-resistant, it built much of Sapporo from the Meiji era on.

A deep lintel mortised between posts that both carries sliding doors and, like a beam, takes load and stiffens the frame; common between rooms in farmhouses.

A bracket arm mortised into the side of a post rather than set on a bearing block at its top; characteristic of the Daibutsuyo style and also found in Zen-style buildings and modern gates.

A roof of repeated single-pitch slopes like the teeth of a saw, its vertical faces glazed to draw steady north light into a factory floor.

A tile scored with fine vertical grooves that scatter the light softly, widely used on building exteriors from the late Taisho into the early Showa period.

A storehouse whose walls are built of squared timbers stacked horizontally and interlocked at the corners like a well frame, a structure different from the usual post-and-plaster storehouse; when plastered outside it is hard to tell apart.

Roof tiles fired in the Iwami region of western Shimane, glazed with a slip made from Kimachi stone and fired above 1,200°C to a red-brown; resistant to frost and salt, they were laid widely along the Sea of Japan coast and beyond.

A style of temple architecture based on wayō but incorporating details of the Zen and Daibutsuyō styles; it spread from the late Kamakura into the Muromachi period, with leading examples among main halls around the Inland Sea and in Kinki.

A basin in which water taken into a channel slows so that the sediment it carries settles out; built below intakes for hydroelectric, water-supply and irrigation channels, with a sluice for flushing the sand.

A family that held the priesthood of a shrine by hereditary right, living near the shrine and conducting its rites; their houses sometimes show features such as a large household altar.

A bluish volcanic tuff quarried in the Asuwa Hills of Fukui City; easy to work, it was used for castle walls, stone roof tiles, monuments, gateposts and paving. It is no longer quarried.

A way of laying square tiles or stones so that the joints run at forty-five degrees to the walls; used for the floors of Zen temple halls and for earth-floored areas and entrances.

A farmhouse form in which a lean-to runs round all four sides so that the main roof appears to sit on it like a lid, found in the Sanuki district.

A low boarded step between the entrance floor and the raised rooms, where guests were received, found in the houses of headmen and the well-to-do as a mark of standing.

A lime plaster mixed with binder and fibre, applied white or black, used on storehouse walls and worked into relief pictures.

A roof broken by a step partway down its slope, so that the upper and lower sections are laid separately; found on hip-and-gable and hipped roofs and echoing ancient Buddhist halls.

A gate with two main posts and four supporting posts, two in front and two behind, its ridge set directly over the main pair, used for the more formal gates of temples and shrines.

The great central post running up through a three- or five-storied pagoda and carrying the finial spire at its top; from the medieval period it typically stops above the first-storey ceiling rather than reaching the ground.

A wall finish that leaves the posts visible on the outside, standing opposite the method that buries them in plaster and marking the difference from storehouse construction.

Finishing the timber without paint or lacquer, leaving the bare wood, a practice of shrine architecture in which the grain and the quality of the material become the design.

A curved member bridging the gap between the bracketing and the ceiling, smoothing the junction; when closed with boards it takes a name of its own.

A window formed by leaving part of an earthen wall unplastered so that the lath beneath shows through, used in tea rooms and garden buildings in no fixed shape.

Horizontal weatherboarding, each board overlapping the one below, finished either plain or with notched battens holding the boards, and used on Japanese and Western-style buildings alike.

In sake brewing, the starter in which yeast is cultivated in quantity to ferment the main mash; also called moto, it is made from koji, steamed rice, water and yeast in a dedicated starter room or building.

A single Sanskrit letter standing for a Buddha or bodhisattva, also written with a different second character; carved on stone memorials such as itabi and hōkyōintō and on ritual objects, it identifies the deity honoured.

The building in a temple precinct from which the bronze bell hangs; some stand open on four posts, others enclose the lower part with a flared hakamagoshi so that they look two-storeyed. Also called kanetsukidō.

The village headman of the Edo period, responsible for collecting dues and settling disputes, whose house survives in numbers as an upper-class farmhouse.

A brick made chiefly from the slag left by iron smelting, set rather than kiln-fired and grey to grey-brown in colour; used from the Meiji to the Showa era, especially around northern Kyushu, and now rare.

A short wall running out to either side of a gate, tying it into the boundary of the plot so that the gate does not stand alone.

The lowered section cut into the crest of an erosion-control dam through which water is concentrated and passed, keeping flow at the centre and away from the banks; records give its width and side slopes.

A brickwork bond that shows only the long face of each brick, used where a curved surface such as a tunnel arch has to be built.

A low secondary dam built downstream of a main erosion-control dam to stop the falling water from scouring the bed, with an apron and revetments between the two forming a single installation.

Roofing of flattened cedar bark laid in overlapping courses and held down with bamboo or battens; light and rustic, it is common on gates, walls, tea rooms and buildings in the sukiya manner.

A fence closed at the base with boards or plaster and open above with slats or lattice, used around shrine sanctuaries and to divide precincts while leaving the interior visible.

The ear-shaped horns rising from the four corners of the roof of a hōkyōintō stone monument, its most distinctive feature; their angle, shape and carved ornament change with period.

A turret built at the corner of a castle enclosure, set on the angle of the stone wall to watch and defend two directions; usually two or three storeys, with drop openings and loopholes.

The shrine hall form of Sumiyoshi Taisha in Osaka: a gabled building entered from the gable end, its elongated plan divided front to back into an outer and an inner chamber.

The metal spire rising from the top of a pagoda, built up of a base plate, inverted bowl, lotus, nine rings, flame-shaped openwork and a jewel, marking the building as a reliquary tower.

A school of Zen Buddhism brought from Song China by Dogen in the Kamakura period and centred on seated meditation; its two head temples are Eiheiji in Fukui and Sojiji, founded by Keizan.

The upper tier of the Historic Site designation, given to remains judged particularly important and carrying stronger obligations to restore damage.

The shrine hall form represented by Ise, gabled and entered from the eaves side, with free-standing ridge posts, crossed finials and ridge billets, and a roof left straight.

A residential style built around a formal reception room with an alcove, shelving and a study bay, ordered by squared posts and horizontal trim, and set against the more relaxed tea-influenced manner.

A residential style that brings the manner of the tea room into the reception rooms of a house, replacing the squared timbers and formal trim of formal reception architecture with bark-edged posts, natural logs and earthen walls.

The exceptionally thick pillar at the centre of a taisha-zukuri shrine sanctuary, the middle of nine posts set three by three and long held sacred; distinct from the central post of a pagoda.

A latticed panel backed with boards, hinged at the top and swung upward and outward, used across the front of shrine and temple halls so that opening it turns the panel into a canopy.

The raised dais in the inner sanctuary of a Buddhist hall on which the principal image is placed, named after the world-mountain of Buddhist cosmology.

The technique of laying gold leaf over lacquer used as an adhesive, giving Buddhist statues and some buildings a gold surface; records note it as a lacquer-gilt finish.

Carving that cuts right through a board so that the ground shows behind it, used on transoms and panelled doors to pass light and air while forming a pattern.

The four guardian kings who protect the four quarters of the Buddhist cosmos, shown in armour trampling demons and placed at the corners of an altar around the main image.

The esoteric Buddhist school founded by Kukai in the ninth century, centred on Mount Koya and divided into many branches, named in records to characterise a temple.

The fusion of kami worship and Buddhism that shaped Japanese religious practice until the two were separated by government order in the early Meiji period, leaving traces in guardian shrines within temples and bell towers within shrines.

The periodic rebuilding of a shrine and transfer of its sacred object to the new hall at fixed intervals, best known at Ise, from which retired halls are sometimes granted to other shrines.

A triangular panel filling the angle between a canopy column and the beam above it, carved and counted among the display pieces on a shrine front.

A two-storey pagoda with a square lower storey and a cylindrical upper body, joined by a white dome-shaped collar above the lower roof and capped with a square roof; common at Shingon and Tendai temples.

A vertical strut standing on a curved beam in gable framing, swelling towards its base and usually flanked by carved wings.

A double-skinned wall packed between the two faces to stop bullets, used around the outer walls of castle turrets.

The general term for a fence enclosing a shrine's main sanctuary and marking off sacred ground; made of timber or stone, in many forms distinguished by material and the way the boards or bars are set.

A long single-tier range built along the top of a stone rampart, linking keeps and corner turrets and used inside as a corridor or store.

Stone laid tilted on its corner and dropped into the gap between two stones below, giving a diamond joint pattern; common on modern walls and dams.

The sloping members that run from the ridge to the eaves to carry the roof, recorded by the number of tiers and the spacing between them.

A pattern of two members or lines crossing diagonally; in buildings, diagonally crossed battens, tasuki-zan, are set into walls, transoms and fittings as ornament.

A thick floor mat faced with woven rush, also used as the unit by which the size of a room is given, as in eight mats or four and a half.

A corridor floored with tatami, run around a formal reception room between it and the veranda; regarded as a finer finish than a boarded corridor and common in large modern residences, restaurants and inns.

Japan's traditional method of smelting iron from iron sand with charcoal, and the smelting works where it was done; the name also refers to the large foot-operated bellows that blew air into a furnace.

A sub-temple within or beside the precinct of a large temple, originally a memorial or residence for an eminent monk; it belongs to the main temple but has its own halls and gardens. Common in Zen temples, it also occurs in other schools.

Cladding of boards set vertically side by side on walls and fences, usually with narrow battens nailed over the joints; the counterpart of horizontally lapped weatherboarding.

A small cupboard set against the ceiling above the shelves beside an alcove or above a closet; in the shoin style the standard alcove-side arrangement puts it above the staggered shelves with a lower cupboard below.

The tallest tower at the centre of a castle, and where several turrets are linked around a courtyard, the group is named as a connected keep.

The curve of a roof or gable that combines a concave sweep with a convex swell; the swell alone is also recorded on roofs, canopies and gables.

A Buddhist pagoda with three tiers of roofs, enshrining relics or images; with the five-storied pagoda it is one of the main forms of Japanese timber pagoda, usually three bays square with a finial spire at the top.

The boxed recess at the end of an opening into which the shutters slide, so that the front can stand open through the day.

The ornamental post beside the alcove, the most conspicuous column in a reception room, chosen from prized timber and often left as a log or with its bark edge showing.

The raised recess in a reception room where a scroll or a flower arrangement is displayed, and the feature by which the standing of the room is judged.

The shelved recess beside the alcove, fitted with staggered shelves and low cupboards, and the third element of the formal reception-room fittings.

The doorway of a storehouse together with the space in front of it, where a heavy door hangs under a protective hood.

The earth-floored passage that runs from the street front to the rear of a townhouse, with the living rooms ranged along one or both sides.

The lime plaster traditionally used in Kochi Prefecture, applied thickly and valued for resisting rain; in a typhoon-prone region it finishes outer walls and eaves, often with rows of small drip tiles.

A framework of members arranged in triangles so that loads are carried as tension and compression; it spans wide openings without intermediate posts and is used in roof frames and bridges.

A canopy thrown out over an earth-floored area, sheltering the ground before a storehouse or a work space from the rain.

A heavy door built up from earth over a timber core and finished in plaster, hung at storehouse doorways and castle gates to check the spread of fire.

An earthen wall, built of rammed or layered clay and capped with a small tiled roof, that encloses temples, palaces and residences; some are instead plastered over a timber frame.

A built-in desk with a paper-screened window projecting towards the veranda beside the alcove, one of the fittings that define the formal reception room.

A window hinged at the top and pushed open from below, set in pairs on the fighting face of a castle turret alongside the loopholes.

A roof with part raised up to create a lofty space beneath it; in silk-raising farmhouses the middle of the roof was lifted to form an upper floor for ventilation and light.

An arrangement in which the entrance is placed on the gable end of a building, so that visitors enter from the side where the triangular wall is visible.

The arrangement of bracket sets not only on top of the posts but also, in the same form, between them; a hallmark of the Zen style that lines the eaves with closely spaced brackets.

A wing projecting at right angles from the main block of a house, roofed with its ridge turned to the other direction and used for reception rooms, kitchens or work spaces.

A low upper storey without standing headroom, used for storage or sleeping, and a common feature of pre-modern townhouses.

Two or more tatami rooms set in a row and divided by sliding partitions so they can be opened into one large room; typically a principal room with an alcove and an adjoining anteroom.

The built face at the mouth of a tunnel, composed of pilasters, coping and string courses, and the part where design effort is concentrated.

An item designated together with a cultural property because of its close connection to it, recorded in the register with its own separate quantity.

A form of shrine main hall typified by the Izumo Taisha sanctuary: a near-square plan two bays by two, a gabled roof entered from the gable end, and a thick central pillar.

The school founded by Saicho in the ninth century, seated at Enryakuji on Mount Hiei, combining esoteric practice with the teaching of the Lotus Sutra and giving rise to many later schools.

A veranda enclosed within the sliding shutters or glass doors outside a reception room, forming part of the interior between the matted room and the garden.

A stone wall of roughly split stones whose contact faces are hammered down to reduce the gaps, standing between unworked and finely cut masonry.

Setting posts to lean slightly inward rather than upright, so that the structure narrows towards the top and reads as stable, used on gateways and bell towers.

A small fire wall raised at the gable end or above the roof of a townhouse, checking the spread of flame from a neighbour and, being visible from the street, advertising the owner's standing.

A short horizontal member projecting from a post to carry an eave beam or canopy; it gives the udekimon gate its name and is widely used to extend the eaves of houses.

A gate whose two main posts carry projecting brackets front and back to support the eave beams of a small gabled roof; a simple form common for house entrances, garden gates and minor temple gates.

The pendant hung at the peak of a curved gable, shaped to follow that curve and often carved with a phoenix to ornament the front of a building.

A heavy beam run lengthwise through the middle of a roof frame; in wide buildings it supports the tie beams or inclined beams midway and carries the roof load.

The refined sap of the lacquer tree, forming a hard and durable film used to finish images and interiors and as the ground for gold leaf.

A shaft sunk vertically from the surface, combined with a horizontal drift to form part of a culvert or a tunnel.

The traditional Japanese roof frame, in which short posts stand on the beams to carry the purlins, recorded in contrast to the Western truss.

A boarded screen set at the rear end of the side veranda of a shrine sanctuary, closing off the veranda so that it does not continue round the back; often decorated with carving.

The architectural manner matured in Japan by the Heian period, named in contrast to the two styles brought from China in the Kamakura period, and marked by gentle eaves curves and restrained detail.

A gate with a turret built over it, set between stone walls, its upper level used as a bridge corridor or a fighting platform at the key points of a castle.

A method of laying stones or tiles diagonally in opposing directions to form a herringbone pattern, used on stone walls and on the lower walls of modern buildings.

Cedar boards whose surface has been charred; the carbonised layer is said to protect the wood from rain and sun, and the boards are used mainly in western Japan to clad the lower walls of storehouses and houses.

A gate form with supporting posts set behind the main pair and the ridge placed forward over them, framed by a lintel and paired beams, used for temple gates and the front gates of houses.

The Buddha of healing, shown holding a medicine jar in the left hand and usually enshrined as a triad with the bodhisattvas of sunlight and moonlight.

Boarding in which alternate boards are set forward and back with their edges slightly overlapping; used for fences, dados and ceilings, it screens while letting air through and looks finished from either side.

A farmhouse roof form of Nara and southern Osaka: a steep thatched gabled roof whose gable ends are finished in tile and plastered walls, with lower tiled wings attached at the side.

A house plan dividing the raised floor into four rooms arranged two by two like the character 田; combined with an earth-floored area, it is widespread in early modern farmhouses and townhouses.

A window fitted with stout bars on the outer wall and a small hood above, used on gatehouses, storehouses and samurai residences; the name is said to come from its use at the houses of yoriki, Edo police officials.

A Western-style roof frame that carries the roof on trusses of tie beams and inclined rafters set in triangles, spanning wide without intermediate posts; the counterpart of the traditional wagoya.

A roof that slopes on all four sides from a short ridge, so no triangular gable appears at either end.

A method of wooden sculpture in which the head and torso are built from two or more separate blocks joined together; suited to large, hollowed statues, it became the standard technique from the late Heian period.

A mat-floored room on the raised floor, most often the room where guests are received, fitted with an alcove and an anteroom and placed at the upper end of the house.

A clay-walled storehouse fitted inside with a reception room complete with alcove, using a fireproof storehouse for receiving guests or living; the room itself is also called kura-zashiki.

The collective name for the fixtures of a reception room in the shoin style: the alcove, staggered shelves, built-in desk and ornamental doorway; first places for displaying art, they became the standard marks of a room's formality.

A cabinet with doors for enshrining a Buddhist image, sutras or relics, often made in the form of a small hall and set in the inner sanctuary or on the altar platform.

The architectural manner brought from China with Zen Buddhism, distinguished from the native tradition by densely packed brackets, cusped windows and panelled doors.

A townhouse form found in Osaka and elsewhere, with a high wall and gate on the street and the main house set back behind a front garden; common for townhouses used purely as residences rather than shops.

Rafters laid radiating outward like the ribs of a folding fan, a hallmark of the Zen style; where only the corners radiate, the layout is called sumi-ōgidaruki.

Wall construction in which posts and beams are buried in plaster or covered so they do not show; the opposite of exposed-post walls and common on storehouses and buildings designed against fire.

A light, pumiceous tuff quarried around Ōya in Utsunomiya, Tochigi; easy to cut and fire-resistant, it was widely used for storehouses, fences, retaining walls and exterior cladding.