Kure-en

What a kure-en is

A kure-en is a veranda whose floorboards run lengthwise along it, so that the joints between them follow the direction of travel and the surface reads as one continuous run. It stands opposite the Kirime-en, where the boards are laid across the width instead.

Houses use it. The annexe of the Kinoshita Residence in Saga Prefecture, built in 1924, is described as a single-storey timber building 8.3 by 4.9 metres, Irimoya-zukuri with Sangawara-buki and a lean-to all round, with an eight-mat main room and a six-mat anteroom side by side and this kind of veranda wrapping the north and east sides, glazed towards the garden on the north to open the interior up.

Carried round two sides and closed with glass towards the garden, the veranda works as the layer between the rooms and the ground outside.

It also links buildings. The upper privy at the Nagasaki Residence in Kagawa Prefecture, built in 1930, is described as standing west of the main reception room and connected to it by one of these verandas, the building itself 7.0 by 3.0 metres, Yosemune-zukuri with pantiles, the veranda added under a canopy on its east face.

Recognising it

Look down at the boards. If their length runs the same way as the veranda, this is the type; if they cross it, the other type is in use.

Location is a further clue. This kind is found around the reception rooms of houses and along the passages that join an annexe to a main building, while the crosswise type appears most often as the veranda encircling a shrine hall.

Since the distinction rests on how the boards are laid, it is independent of whether a roof covers the veranda. A veranda left outside the shelter of the roof is named separately, and that difference belongs to another axis altogether.