Giyōfū

What giyōfū is

Giyōfū names the buildings of the early Meiji period in which Japanese carpenters imitated the look of Western architecture. It refers to work by traditional craftsmen approximating a foreign style by observation, rather than to buildings by architects trained in Western construction.

The former Tsuruoka police station in Yamagata Prefecture, built in 1884, is recorded as an Important Cultural Property, 18.2 by 12.9 metres, two storeys of timber under a Hōgyō-zukuri roof in Sangawara-buki, with an entrance porch below and a veranda above projecting from the front. The entry calls it representative of the style in a region that pursued Westernisation energetically, skilful in fusing Japanese and Western elements, and a culmination of what local craftsmen achieved in the early Meiji period.

Three points define the type in that entry: the early Meiji date, the local craftsmen, and the fusion of Japanese and Western elements.

The former Kamo-gun Bank branch in Aichi Prefecture, from about 1907, is described as a Meiji building of the style, with carving suited to a bank on the Ranma of its upstairs Japanese room, later serving as a clinic and a community hall.

Motifs that outlived the style

Later buildings are described as having motifs of the style rather than belonging to it. The Onishi clinic in Ehime Prefecture, from the early Taisho period, is a single-storey Shitami-itabari clinic whose walls are Western in treatment while its roof is a traditional Irimoya-zukuri in pantiles, with an entrance porch of the same traditional form and a blind fanlight on the road side that the entry singles out as characteristic.

Weatherboarded walls under a traditional tiled roof is the classic combination. Records distinguish the style from its motifs because the style belongs to the early Meiji period while its details went on being used long after.

On site, read roof and wall separately. Weatherboarding, paint, sash windows and verandas on the walls beneath a tiled Japanese roof place a building in this lineage.