Todobukuro

What a todobukuro is

A todobukuro is the boxed recess at the end of an opening into which the sliding storm shutters are stacked. With every shutter housed, the front can stand fully open by day.

The fronts of a Misegura use it. The Nakamura Residence shopfront storehouse in Ibaraki Prefecture, built in 1913, is described as having a lean-to canopy at the front and an open composition broken only by one of these at the west end, with shuttered windows above and plastered walls faced with battened boarding.

The phrasing is worth noting: the box is the only interruption. Everything but that width opens, so the recess is precisely what makes the openness possible.

Modern shops kept it. The Kobayashi shop in Ibaraki Prefecture, built in 1928, is described as continuing the traditional form, its shopfront of a counting desk and an L-shaped Doma, with glazed doors and shutter boxes showing the taste of the early Showa years. The doors became glass; the box remained.

Where to look

Look at the end of the frontage. A boarded box slightly deeper than one shutter, standing at the end of the run of openings, is the feature, and from the side the slot through which the shutters pass can be seen.

It is often treated as part of the design. Finishes vary between boarding, plaster and panelled work, and on a Machiya the box is composed along with the rest of the front.

Where there is no box, shutters must be stored elsewhere or the fittings left sliding in place. Panels that swing up like a Shitomido, or sliding Mairado, need no box at all.