Koshikake-machiai

What a koshikake-machiai is

A koshikake-machiai is the small shelter set in a Roji where guests sit and wait before being called in. It is among the smallest buildings that carry cultural property status.

The waiting shelter at the Kamiya Residence in Aichi Prefecture, built in 1923, is described as a single-storey timber building 2.4 metres by 1.4, Kirizuma-zukuri with a copper roof, its earthen walls faced with cedar bark at the base and opened with a half-moon window on the south side where the principal guest sits, its frame using adzed timber and logs with the bark edge left on.

That the window differs on one side is worth noting. Guests sit in order of precedence, and the treatment of the wall can follow that order.

The waiting shelter at Chikushi Jogakuen in Fukuoka Prefecture, built in 1940, is described as 1.8 metres long and varying in depth from 0.9 metres at the south end to 0.6 at the north, with a swept roof of cedar bark, log posts, plastered walls with the frame exposed, and a lattice-backed window on the south gable. Its seat board changes level partway along, and cedar and bamboo alternate across it.

How records count these

The Insū entry for the former Murayama Residence in Hyogo Prefecture lists an entrance with a waiting room, a bench, a reception room, a waiting shelter and a garden privy as separate items. Waiting was served by several kinds of structure, each counted in its own right.

The Japanese term names a building that combines a bench with a place to wait. The construction is plain: a roof, a seat board, and walls on only two or three sides.

On site, note how low everything sits. These are not buildings to stand up in, so the eaves are kept down, and the recorded dimensions rarely exceed a couple of metres in either direction.