[Plate 9.] PLAN OF A JAPANESE HOUSE
[Plate 10.] PLAN FOR A DWELLING HOUSE
In a word we should build houses for the appearance sake so far as architectural aspect is concerned, and as to the interior the privacy should never be lost sight of. Our houses run from one extreme to the other; unless they are kept strictly secluded by walling the house lot by tall fences they are so widely open that one can see at a glance from one corner of a house. We frequently notice it among the lower classes of people. Fences are walls in Japanese houses; if they be taken away a house stands naked or defenceless. How the nakedness of a house exerts an influence upon the moral effect of inhabitants of the house, we can tell it at once by their indifference to the individual right, and their rude demeanor to the general public.
Vicissitude of the mode of living represents the alteration of the custom of a country, and the latter is the result of the change of a mental taste of the people forming a majority of a nation. In this time of transition a considerable change in mental taste has occurred and many a rite of old has been rooted out since the revolution of 1867. The houses in feudal times were chiefly planned to comply with the mode of living of aristocracy or fashioned after the spirit of Samurai class. (The martial class). The “Shinden-tsukuri” (living-palace-type) or “Adzumaya” of more than one thousand years ago was a nature of pure aristocracy; indulgence in gratification of a pleasure being the predominant object of its plan. The whole group of buildings was like a summer house in modern sense. On the other hand, “Shoin-tsukuri” (Study room-type) was a type which well represents the spirit of Samurai, and it became undoubtedly the prototype of modern Japanese dwelling houses.
To turn our attention for a while to an immaterial side of Japanese domestic architecture noticing how it had been subjected under the spiritual influence which at least in Japanese houses is efficaciously influenced by other elements like religion, climate, and foreign country, I deem it not quite amiss in this theme.
Plate 11. A LARGE GATE AND ‘MUKURI-HAFU’ ROOF