1924
Entrance of a House

Two women in kimono stand at the entrance, called genkan (玄関), of a house of what appears to be a well-to-do family.

There is a huge stone lantern and the large open area in front of the entrance suggests much space between the entrance and the gate. The word genkan was first introduced in the 17th century and used for a porch-like projection from the guard house or retainers room, built in the residences of leading warriors and shoguns.¹ Other people were prohibited from having a genkan. By the 18th century, however, exceptions were made for rich merchants, village headmen, doctors and officials in charge of important shrines.²

During the Meiji Period (1868-1912) many rules like these were struck off the books and the genkan became an accepted part of an increasing number of houses.

This photo was taken in the year after the horrendous Great Kanto Earthquake devastated Tokyo, Yokohama and surrounding areas. This disaster was the beginning of the end of this kind of wooden architecture.

Japan’s wooden houses had fed fires for many centuries. In Tokyo, fires were so common they were called flowers of Edo (江戸の花). These greedy flowers were famous and attracted crowds just as large as the ones that showed up for the more peaceful hanami —the viewing of sakura (cherry blossom)— on the south-east bank of the Sumida River in spring.

Such fires were no small events. In 1657, a huge fire in Edo (current Tokyo) claimed over 100,000 lives. As late as 1879 and 1881 over 10,000 buildings were burned down in large conflagrations. In 1892, some 4,000 structures were lost in a fire. They weren’t limited to Tokyo either. Just about every large Japanese city has one or more taika (大火, great fire) in its history books.

Japanese had always rebuilt in wood, but after the Great Kanto Earthquake, many people choose to build ferro-concrete structures instead. After most of Japan’s cities were destroyed by fire bombs during WWII, wooden houses became more and more of a rarity in large cities. Soon, Japan became so used to building in concrete that wooden housing even started to vanish from cities that had been spared from bombing, such as the city of Kyoto.

Someone who looked out over this city during the sixties still saw a wide expanse of low wooden architecture. These days one sees mostly a concrete jungle interspersed with some historic temples and a few left-over machiya.

This trend spelled the beginning of the end for the Japanese carpenter, who for centuries had been both architect and builder. In the wonderful book Home Life in Tokyo, in which Jukichi Inouye (井上十吉) tells foreigners about everyday life in Tokyo during the end of the Meiji Period, he gives an interesting and surprisingly critical description of the carpenter³:

Inouye also complains about how cold Japanese houses are during winter, how susceptible they are to burglary, and how quickly they grow old and need to be torn down and replaced. His critical view of the Japanese house, although perhaps for different reasons, still seems to be shared by a large number of people in Japan. Many realtors will tell you that the majority of their customers prefer Western style housing.

Foreign visitors though are generally deeply charmed by traditional Japanese architecture and lament its demise. An increasing number of Japanese are beginning to feel the same way and this has caused the foundation of organizations like for example the Japan Minka Revival Association (JMRA), which preserves old minka (traditional Japanese farmhouses), and the Kyomachiya Saisei Kenkyukai (京町家再生研究会) and Kyomachiya Sakujigumi (京町家作事組) which preserve Kyoto’s beautiful machiya.

This glass slide is one of a series of slides of Japan that was used by the New York State Education Department to teach students about Japan.

Notes

¹ Japanese Architecture and Art Net Users System. genkan 玄関. Retrieved on 2008-10-15.

² ibid.

³ Inouye, Jukichi (1911). Home Life in Tokyo. The Tokyo Printing Company, Ltd: 37.

Published October 14, 2008
Updated December 7, 2021 3:39 PM

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