Future Development of Japanese Dwelling Houses

by Shigetsura Shiga

Plate 20

If the governing art of the twentieth century the “art nouveau” has more or less connection to the fanciful products of Japanese art as some American writer asserts, the amalgamation of accessory art like landscape gardening of Japanese with that of European may succeed in producing some thing which is acceptable to the whim and fantastic thought of modern architects.

If the influence of social habits and manners is the most important in the effects on domestic architecture as one of the writers of “Our Homes” puts it, it will be interesting to compare our houses to those of England whose social organization is more like ours than any other nations in Europe. We have had four classes in society until just immediately before the abolition of the feudal system in 1867 above referred to. England had also four classes in society at the period immediately following the Norman Conquest; they were nobles and small landowners, the clergy, the townfolks, and the agricultural classes. The English nobles correspond to our Daimio and small landowners to Samurai, the townfolks to our artisans and merchants, and the agricultural classes to our soil tillers. Our clergy not being enumerated in the social classes they were considered as recluse. English nobles’ castles like the Tower of London, Rochester, Dover etc. are of the same nature as our castles of Nagoya, Kumamoto and others which are scattered all over the country as the seats of Daimio. Sub-feudatories’ houses in England were frequently constructed of wood and in cases of danger they took refuge in their lords’ castles. Their houses rarely contained more than two or three rooms. Our small Samurai houses were probably not larger than those of sub-feudatories, and unquestionably they were made of wood. But fortunately, our smallest Samurai houses were not so wretched as English villeins’ houses which were “commonly rude hovels of mud and thatch, in the one apartment of which the whole family slept. Some times two apartments existed, one of which was allotted to the cow. The floors were either of mud or roughly paved with pebbles”.

The development of English domestic architecture is of the same nature as ours; this is particularly noticed by comparing the idea of “an assize” of 1189 the first “Building Act” of England to our first building ordinance of Shōmu dynasty in 768 A.D. The house in these times in England being mostly built of wood had roofs of straw, reeds, and similar materials, and frequent fires compelled the adoption of a new mode of building. Therefrom, the stone houses covered with thick tiles was one of the requisites of “an assize”. The Imperial decree of 768 A.D. we can hardly call a building act, as it only consists of a few lines concerning the regulation of building an imperial palace and the houses of subjects; for instance “officers and laities who can afford to build their own houses should use tiles to cover roofs, and the walls are to be decorated with red and white earth”. Before this period thatched roofs had mostly been used. It is evident that the fear of a calamity of conflagration was the cause of the forthcoming of the first building acts of both nations. In England the building act having passed revision after revision, the domestic architecture was improved slowly, but steadily keeping pace with other continental nations in Europe. Improvements of domestic architecture partly owe their cause to the command of materials to be used. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, England was not much ahead of us in the use of building materials. Before the assize of 1189 the outside of houses was covered with reeds or rushes, but after the issue plaster was used both outside and inside of the houses and tiles, wooden shingles, and lead were used as roof coverings. Windows, before the thirteenth century, were mere holes having frames on which oiled paper and canvas were stretched until glass was used for the first time in this period.

English houses of the twelfth century were certainly no better than our Shinden type. Let me give an example of what condition the English houses were in in the twelfth century. The following quotation well explains it: “the floor was frequently of earth, and strewn with rushes or straw. When it is considered that refuse from the table was, as a matter of course, thrown on to the floor; that dogs, hawks and other domestic animals lived in the hall, it will scarcely be wondered at that the state of the floor became highly offensive. It is related as an instance of the extreme refinement of Thomas Becket that he ordered his floors to be covered with fresh straw in winter, and in summer with fresh rushes, in order that such of his guests as could not find room at the tables might not get their clothes soiled by sitting on a dirty floor.” This may be an example of an extreme case. Every student of architecture knows that the thirteenth century in England is a zenith of Early English Gothic, why is it that the manor-house and the great landowner’s residence did not come under the influence of art then flourishing in the country? Perhaps they did to a certain extent, but not until as late as the Tudor period. One should not imagine that the splendid painted glass of Westminster Abbey was found everywhere in England. It was a costly luxury in this period; for it was imported from abroad and still more expensive because skilled workmen were rare. It is said that in these days common dwelling houses had glass in the upper part of windows and wooden shutters in the lower part.

It was during the time of Elizabeth’s reign, the sixteenth century, that English houses assumed a character altogether different from that of the middle ages. This is a result of commerce and navigation which has ever since been making England so pre-eminent. “The long galleries, the projecting oriels and bay windows, the broad terraces and stately flights of stairs, mark a new departure in domestic architecture”. Once the lavish use of glass called forth the protest of Lord Bacon, and the use of carpets, except on extraordinary occasions, was considered a mark of extreme luxury and foppishness. This was the state of things in the sixteenth century in England.

At the same time that the beautiful fan-vaulting of Westminster Abbey astonished the world with splendor and delicacy of detail, an order was given by Henry III to make “a certain conduit through which the refuse of the king’s kitchen at Westminster flows into the Thames; which conduit the king ordered to be made on account of the stink of the dirty water which was carried through his halls, which was wont to affect the health of the people frequenting the same hall.” And in the reign of the same sovereign the royal kitchens at Oxford were blown down by a strong wind. If the house of the sovereign was in such a condition in sanitation and construction, it may be inferred that the houses of the lower classes were utterly miserable. I do not wonder that the plagues, pestilences and leprosy of the middle ages checked the increase of population in England. England of the present period, when compared with that of seven hundred years ago, is like another world: and what difference is there between the houses of the present day and those of seven hundred years ago in our land?

When the four classes of society were firmly established in former ages, the plans of the houses were much modified by the vocation, though not much difference in architectural aspect. In the time when domestic manufacturing was in general a predominant feature of trade, and the co-operative system of business was in an undeveloped state, a factory, a store, and a dwelling house were one and the same; a store in front and a factory in the rear of a house was a general feature of the house of a merchant and a mechanic. This kind of house should of course not be treated under the heading of dwelling house proper. We have such houses everywhere in the city at present and cannot expect to exterminate them in the near future. But the advancement of civilization may not allow such varied forms of houses to exist; the rise of land value and increase of lease bring forth the co-operative system of business or compel a man to work on a large scale and thereby drives the good natured hamlet dwellers, gratifying themselves with a beautiful world of their own, out of the field of fierce struggle for existence. No one can afford to indulge in luxury by dwelling at the centre of a city unless he is exceptionally wealthy and has little regard for the quietness of home life. Wonderful power of organs of communication shortens the distance, thereby forming two distinct type of dwelling houses that is the city and the suburban, the real classification of domestic architecture. The flats, apartment or tenement houses which are classed among the city houses are the outgrowth of an advancement of communication organs, and the cottages of the suburbs are peaceful homes of strugglers for life sustenance. Thus the circumstances do not permit the existence of houses which consist of stores in front and factories in the rear. The classification of houses according to the classes of society, as formerly in vogue, has no meaning in this time of enlightenment. The plan of a house necessarily becomes narrower in front in the city dwelling as we often notice in houses at Kioto and Osaka. London and New York and all other Western great cities lay examples before us, but it is curious to note that Tokyo furnishes many examples which are contrary to this fact. Domestic architecture develops in this direction only not in any other way. I do not wonder at the subject much talked of of late about the tax to be levied on gardens belonging to houses within urban district. Fortunately the proposition was not carried into effect; but the searching eyes of wise, inquisitive politicians have already been turned to the virgin soil for resource, it is almost certain that sooner or later they will succeed. The alteration of Japanese houses has been necessitated from even a political stand point. At any rate, as to the laying down of principles and the printing out of methods of carrying out the alteration of the plan, Japanese architects are fully responsible.

Dwelling houses are divided, according to an architectural treatment, into two classes viz. city and suburban houses. The characteristics of the two and the reasons why they should be so classified need no explaining here; only a few illustrations of the two different types of dwelling houses are sufficient to remind us of the truth.