Glossary

A storehouse whose walls are built of horizontal timbers, usually triangular in section, stacked and interlocked at the corners without corner posts; Nara-period examples survive at the Shosoin and temple treasuries.

A farmhouse form of western Toyama, especially the Tonami area: a large gable-entry gabled roof turned to the front, its gable wall showing a grid of ties and posts against white plaster; records usually write the name in katakana.

A small open shelter of posts and a roof without walls, built in gardens for rest and viewing; usually with a pyramidal or hipped roof. Also written with other characters.

A dam in which a thin reinforced-concrete watertight wall is supported by a row of buttresses on its downstream side; lighter and less material-hungry than a gravity dam but complex to build, with few examples in Japan.

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 method of carrying the beams out beyond the wall and setting a purlin on their ends to give a deep overhang, used to give the front of a townhouse weight and standing.

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.

A shrine building for displaying votive pictures (ema) presented by worshippers, also called emado, emadokoro or gakuden; usually open-sided and often doubling as a rest shelter.

A dam built across a mountain valley or torrent to hold back sediment and prevent disasters downstream; of stone or concrete, it is combined with a spillway notch, sub-dam and apron.

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.

A shrine form in which the main hall and the worship hall are joined into one building by a connecting chamber, used for the shrines enshrining Tokugawa Ieyasu.

A gate with eight bracing posts, four before and four behind the four main posts, making twelve posts in all; common for guardian-king gates at temples, it is also written yatsuashimon.

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 farmhouse form of central and southern Nagano: a large gable-entry house under a gently pitched gabled roof on a near-square plan, with a ridge ornament called suzume-odori crowning the front gable.

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.

A stone monument composed of base, square body, stepped roof with corner horns called sumikazari, and finial spire; from the medieval period it was widely erected as a memorial or grave marker.

A single-storey Buddhist monument with a cylindrical body under a square roof and finial spire, usually in stone and linked to Lotus Sutra devotion; its form is said to underlie the upper storey of the tahōtō.

A shrine building one bay wide at the front; records prefix the term to the roof form, as in one-bay nagare-zukuri, and it is common for small main halls and subsidiary shrines.

A tower standing in a dam or reservoir to draw water off, fitted with intakes at several heights so that the level can be chosen according to conditions.

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.

Turning at a right angle, used in records to describe how a wall runs or how buildings join; also written kaneori or described as kagi-no-te.

A burial mound of the Kofun period whose plan joins a round rear mound to a squared front mound in a keyhole shape, with the main burial in the round part; the largest is about 500 m long.

The building in a temple for storing sutras, also called kyōdō; some contain a revolving octagonal bookcase, the rinzō, which is believed to earn the merit of reading all the scriptures when turned.

A gate with a gabled roof over the main posts and smaller roofs set crosswise over the supporting posts behind, keeping the roof small so that the approach can be watched from above.

A shrine hall form with a gabled body entered at the gable end and a canopy added across its front, usually of a single bay, represented by Kasuga Taisha in Nara.

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 small shrine form with no front steps; a shelf projects in front of the sanctum floor instead. Most examples are one- or three-bay nagare-zukuri halls serving as subsidiary shrines.

A shop built with the fire-resistant construction of a storehouse, open across the street front while its outer walls are sealed in plaster.

A gate carried on two main posts alone, without supporting posts behind, plain in construction and used where a wall is pierced or a garden entered.

The most widespread torii form, with an upswept top lintel over a second lintel, a tie beam whose ends project beyond the posts, and a central strut holding the name tablet.

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.

A townhouse form in which a shop block (omoteya) faces the street and a separate residential block stands behind it across an entrance area and courtyard, the two linked together; found in large townhouses of Kyoto and Omi.

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 plan dividing the raised floor into six rooms in two rows of three; it is the basic plan of Zen abbots' halls and main halls and is also common in large farmhouses and old family houses.

A torii of the myōjin form with small bracing posts, chigobashira, set before and behind each main post and tied to it; also called a four-legged torii.

A tall gate that looks two-storeyed but has no roof over its lower level, only a balustraded gallery round the upper level beneath a single roof; distinct from the nijumon, which has roofs at both levels.

A storehouse whose walls are built of squared timbers stacked horizontally and interlocked at the corners like a well frame, a structure different from the usual post-and-plaster storehouse; when plastered outside it is hard to tell apart.

A style of temple architecture based on wayō but incorporating details of the Zen and Daibutsuyō styles; it spread from the late Kamakura into the Muromachi period, with leading examples among main halls around the Inland Sea and in Kinki.

A farmhouse form in which a lean-to runs round all four sides so that the main roof appears to sit on it like a lid, found in the Sanuki district.

A gate with two main posts and four supporting posts, two in front and two behind, its ridge set directly over the main pair, used for the more formal gates of temples and shrines.

The building in a temple precinct from which the bronze bell hangs; some stand open on four posts, others enclose the lower part with a flared hakamagoshi so that they look two-storeyed. Also called kanetsukidō.

A turret built at the corner of a castle enclosure, set on the angle of the stone wall to watch and defend two directions; usually two or three storeys, with drop openings and loopholes.

The shrine hall form of Sumiyoshi Taisha in Osaka: a gabled building entered from the gable end, its elongated plan divided front to back into an outer and an inner chamber.

The shrine hall form represented by Ise, gabled and entered from the eaves side, with free-standing ridge posts, crossed finials and ridge billets, and a roof left straight.

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 two-storey pagoda with a square lower storey and a cylindrical upper body, joined by a white dome-shaped collar above the lower roof and capped with a square roof; common at Shingon and Tendai temples.

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.

A Buddhist pagoda with three tiers of roofs, enshrining relics or images; with the five-storied pagoda it is one of the main forms of Japanese timber pagoda, usually three bays square with a finial spire at the top.

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.

Two or more tatami rooms set in a row and divided by sliding partitions so they can be opened into one large room; typically a principal room with an alcove and an adjoining anteroom.

A form of shrine main hall typified by the Izumo Taisha sanctuary: a near-square plan two bays by two, a gabled roof entered from the gable end, and a thick central pillar.

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.

A farmhouse roof form of Nara and southern Osaka: a steep thatched gabled roof whose gable ends are finished in tile and plastered walls, with lower tiled wings attached at the side.

A house plan dividing the raised floor into four rooms arranged two by two like the character 田; combined with an earth-floored area, it is widespread in early modern farmhouses and townhouses.

A clay-walled storehouse fitted inside with a reception room complete with alcove, using a fireproof storehouse for receiving guests or living; the room itself is also called kura-zashiki.

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

A townhouse form found in Osaka and elsewhere, with a high wall and gate on the street and the main house set back behind a front garden; common for townhouses used purely as residences rather than shops.