Mochiokuri

What a mochiokuri is

A mochiokuri is a bracket projecting from a wall to carry a hood, a canopy or a ledge without a post beneath it. Small roofs over doors and windows depend on them.

Any material will do. The Showa storehouse at the Sakai brewery in Nagano Prefecture, from the early Showa period, has an artificial-stone base and small hoods on iron brackets over its high windows. The new storehouse at the Sato Residence in Iwate Prefecture, built in 1922, is noted for the distinctive brackets of its Tomae hood among its decorative features.

They attract ornament. The Kinryo Fujii storehouse in Kagawa Prefecture, built in 1918, carries Shikkui relief on the brackets of the window hood on its south gable.

Western-style buildings render them as motifs. The inlet well of the former Sumiyoshi waterworks in Shizuoka Prefecture, built in 1931, is a reinforced concrete structure with pilasters at the corners, pedestals at their base, brackets modelled at their top and fluting down the shafts, the bracket appearing as a form rather than a working member.

Where to look

Look up beneath a hood or above a window. A member projecting from the wall at an angle or horizontally to receive the roof or board above it is the bracket.

On a storehouse in Dozo-zukuri the brackets under the door and window hoods are where individual character shows most, which is why a record may single one out as distinctive.

Several Japanese spellings are in use and the records of the Agency for Cultural Affairs use more than one. Follow the spelling of the entry being quoted.