Ranzumi

What ranzumi is

Ranzumi lays stones without even courses, so that the horizontal joints break and step rather than running through. The face reads as irregular.

Its advantage is that stones of different sizes can be used. The snow pit at the Hoshina Residence in Niigata Prefecture, from the Edo period, is described as built on a square plan about five metres a side, its battered walls of round river stones laid this way, with steps against the west face. Round stones are hard to bring to even courses.

The former boiler house at the west harbour of Minamidaito in Okinawa Prefecture, from about 1924, is described as having walls of the island's coral limestone laid this way, and the entry values it as a relic of the island's settlement. The stone available decided the method.

Even dressed stone may be laid this way. The lattice fence at Sasayama Shrine in Fukuoka Prefecture, built in 1879, stands on chamfer-edged dressed stone laid without through joints. Fine working and irregular coursing are compatible.

Chosen against level coursing

The opposite is Nunozumi, which brings the stones to even height so the joints run through. This method answers to the material; the other spends labour to obtain a regular face.

Keep it apart from the question of working. The wall at Meisekiji in Ehime Prefecture is described as roughly dressed stone laid in this manner with Sangi-zumi at the outer corner and a curved batter, three separate facts stated in one sentence: how the stones were worked, how the courses run, and how the corner was built.

On site, step back and look at the whole face. Stone tops that fail to align and joints that step up and down indicate this method, and irregular stone sizes suggest that the material determined the choice.