Glossary

A building or room for the tea ceremony, sized by the number of mats it holds and fitted with its own entrances and preparation space.

A covered watercourse carried beneath an embankment or a road, built on railways to take stream water under the line.

A fire-resistant method of building in which a timber frame is encased in thick earthen walls finished with lime plaster, used for storehouses and also for shops and reception rooms.

The architectural manner introduced from China for the rebuilding of Todaiji, using arms inserted through the columns and saucer-mouldings under the bracket blocks in a boldly scaled composition.

Buildings of the early Meiji period in which Japanese carpenters imitated Western appearance, combining traditional structure with Western motifs, common for offices, schools and banks.

An arrangement in which the entrance is placed on the long side of a building, under the run of the eaves rather than at the gable end.

A small shrine housing a deity or image, set within an estate or by a roadside, in stone examples cut with base, niche and roof from separate blocks; distinct from a memorial hall.

A tunnel cross-section with a semicircular arch above and near-vertical side walls below, adopted as the standard single-track profile by Japan's government railways in the Meiji period.

The administrative house of a lord without a castle, or of a shogunal deputy, serving as both office and residence and showing rank through its buildings rather than fortifications.

A townhouse of the merchant quarters, narrow at the street and deep behind, standing shoulder to shoulder with its neighbours and often organised around a through-passage of beaten earth.

A square enclosure set at a castle gate that forces the approach to turn at a right angle, bounded by two gates and stone walls so that anyone inside is exposed on three sides.

A gate built together with rooms to either side, forming a single range across the front of a village headman's or samurai estate.

A townhouse construction in which the side walls and the eaves soffit are sealed in plaster for fire resistance, without the wall thickness of a storehouse and with the street front left open.

A shrine hall form in which the front slope of a gabled roof is carried down and forward to shelter the approach, recorded with the number of front bays prefixed to the name.

The garden attached to a tea room, laid out as the path a guest follows before entering, with gates and small shelters set along the way.

A residential style built around a formal reception room with an alcove, shelving and a study bay, ordered by squared posts and horizontal trim, and set against the more relaxed tea-influenced manner.

A residential style that brings the manner of the tea room into the reception rooms of a house, replacing the squared timbers and formal trim of formal reception architecture with bark-edged posts, natural logs and earthen walls.

A long single-tier range built along the top of a stone rampart, linking keeps and corner turrets and used inside as a corridor or store.

The tallest tower at the centre of a castle, and where several turrets are linked around a courtyard, the group is named as a connected keep.

An arrangement in which the entrance is placed on the gable end of a building, so that visitors enter from the side where the triangular wall is visible.

The architectural manner matured in Japan by the Heian period, named in contrast to the two styles brought from China in the Kamakura period, and marked by gentle eaves curves and restrained detail.

A gate with a turret built over it, set between stone walls, its upper level used as a bridge corridor or a fighting platform at the key points of a castle.

A gate form with supporting posts set behind the main pair and the ridge placed forward over them, framed by a lintel and paired beams, used for temple gates and the front gates of houses.

The architectural manner brought from China with Zen Buddhism, distinguished from the native tradition by densely packed brackets, cusped windows and panelled doors.