Renji-mado

What a renji-mado is

A renji-mado is a window filled with square bars or bamboo set at even intervals. The Japanese word names the bars themselves. It passes light and air while keeping the interior from view.

Shrine halls use it in the flanking bays. The worship hall at Chokaisan Omonoimi Shrine in Yamagata Prefecture, built in 1943, is described as five bays by three, Irimoya-zukuri under copper sheet, with a one-bay Kōhai at the front and a projection behind carrying a stairway to the middle gate, round columns with simple bracket arms, board doors in the three central bays and windows of this kind in the bays to either side. The entry calls it a hall of solemn bearing.

Machiya fronts use it too. The Higashiyama Residence in Kochi Prefecture, from about 1905, is described as Irimoya-zukuri and pantiled with a Tsushi-nikai, a sitting room to the east and a kitchen to the south, close-set lattice across the upper end of its front, and the upper storey built in the manner of an exposed frame with a distinctive window at its centre.

The pattern reaches transoms as well. The water pavilion at Tomobayashi Shrine in Osaka Prefecture, built in 1941, has a lattice transom above its head trim.

Compared with the reed-lattice transom

An Osa-ranma also uses vertical bars, but set so close that a finger will not pass. Here the bars are spaced apart, and whether you can see through is the practical difference.

A Musha-mado is closer in appearance but different in purpose: heavy vertical bars in the outer wall of a Nagayamon, meant for keeping watch. Records name the type in order to preserve these distinctions.

On site, judge by the gauge and spacing of the bars. Square bars at even intervals with a view through them make this type; bars too close to see through make the transom; heavy bars in a gatehouse wall make the third.