Teri-mukuri

What teri-mukuri means

Teri-mukuri names the curve of a roof or gable that combines a concave sweep with a convex swell. The sweep downward is teri, the swell upward is mukuri, and a line that runs from one into the other is the combined form.

It appears even on stone shrines. The Takigawa Residence shrine in Aichi Prefecture, dated 1525, is described as cut from single stones for base, niche and roof, with a Yosemune-zukuri roof curving in this manner and a Noki-karahafu at the front.

Wall copings use it. The earthen wall at Hofukuji in Okayama Prefecture, from the late Edo period, is finished in white Shikkui and capped in part with tiles curving the same way.

More often the records name the swell alone. A roof surface that bellies upward gives a soft outline, and that convex form has its own word.

The swell on its own

The Fukuda Residence garden gate in Kochi Prefecture, from about 1924, has a Kirizuma-zukuri roof in Sangawara-buki given a convex swell. The former Daishi Bank manager's house in Niigata Prefecture, built in 1936, is a tall Irimoya-zukuri house with a convex-curved gable over its carriage porch. The pine room of the Higashi-Iida brewery in Nagano Prefecture, from the late Meiji period, has a gabled canopy with a convex swell over its north entrance.

Gate, porch and entrance canopy: all prominent positions at the front. The convex curve is favoured in buildings touched by the tea manner.

On site, look at the roof line from the side. Bellying upward is the swell, dipping downward the sweep, and both in one line the combined form. The great sweeping roofs of temples are the concave kind; the swelling canopies of houses are the convex.