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The household altars-both Buddhist and Shinto-were, and still are, an omnipresent feature of the Japanese farmhouse. The gods and ancestors looked over-the-well-being of the household from their high place and protected the family. They were prayed to daily. The first food of the meal would be served to the gods before the family ate. The house, with its gods and fires, its natural materials, was a living presence, connecting man with his natural surroundings.
Kitchens were cold, dark, and usually only vaguely differentiated, sometimes little more than a corner of the dirt-floored indoor work area (doma). Running water and plumbing are both recent luxuries, as is gas for cooking. The bath and toilet were usually separate and outside, although recently, they have been included in the main house. Flush toilets even today are far from universal, and gradually, wood-fired baths have disappeared.
These once typical Japanese farmhouses have nearly vanished now. Simple and human proportions, natural materials masterfully utilized, inside-outside continuity, connectedness-the pillar of the genius of Japanese architecture is surely the honest farmhouse.
If one searches, scenes reminiscent of Japan's past still appear. People live simply, in tune with the rhythms of the land.
Only rarely, deep in the countryside, do you find clusters of thatched farmhouses. When I do, my heart leaps. I almost feel them before I see them, and when I look up, I see a friend. Even if no one is living in them, those straw and earth walls are alive. They are unspeakably beautiful and uncannily human, being of the same organic matter that we are. What will be the legacy of the plastic replacements that now plague the land? What will a child think of his or her heritage, never having seen the eloquent predecessors?
But, you never know. Once I was driving with friends through the mountains northwest of Kyoto in the late summer. The rice was a brilliant green. Layers of mountains surrounded us, mostly hidden in the mists. As we turned yet another curve in the road, suddenly a perfect, newly thatched house appeared, surrounded by rice fields and their guardian scarecrows with the misty mountains behind. Before the house a grandmother held a baby in her arms. We had to stop. When we asked why they decided to thatch their farmhouse, the grandmother smiled and replied that the young people, her son-in-Iaw and daughter, wanted it. It cost more, she said proudly, but it was worth it.
Inside-Outside
All the exterior and interior sliding doors and screens of a traditional Japanese house can be pushed aside or removed to open the entire structure to the outside and allow wind, sunlight, and even birds to penetrate to the heart of the house. The separation between inside and outside vanishes for the moment, and the entire house becomes a part of the natural surroundings, defined only by the roof and the raised, tatamimatted floor. This appealing feature is hardly possible with the traditional Western house, which is more like a fortress against the outside and a rebuttal of the elements. Whatever the cultural and historical reasons, this simplicity and flexibility of interior space and the careful blurring of distinctions between interior and exterior have fascinated and inspired the world's architects for the past century.
Snow dusts the roof of the Shindo house in winter.
The plan of the Woodruff house exterior.
The entranceway to the Shindo house is welcoming, even on a cold gray day.
Woodblocks of houses and shops decorate an old ticket.
A man and his dog in the snowy landscape of a hamlet of thatched houses in Miyama-cho, Kyoto Prefecture.
Gates were sometimes elaborate in country houses. Imposing doors, sometimes topped with a tiled gable, gave stature and importance to the household.
COUNTRY WAYS
LIVING IN THE COUNTRY
Over the years I have been invited into and have had the chance to see the interiors of those wonderful Japanese thatched houses, which have so much appeal viewed from the roadside, tucked up against mountains at the edge of a valley's rice fields. Such houses have a life and character of their own. They speak to you immediately upon entering.
One unforgettable house was on a road in the middle of the Noto Peninsula. My friends and I caught sight of a noble roof soaring above the road. We walked up the hill and found that the house was even more impressive than it had seemed from below. The architecture commanded our attention, a rare and precious token of the past. The lady of the house was just stepping out of the barn, a purple crocheted sweater over her apron, and when we asked if we could look around, she smiled with a mixture of embarrassment and surprise, saying that it was old and dirty and we wouldn't be interested. But secretly she seemed pleased at our interest in her family compound, where she had lived all her married life. She quickly darted inside and alerted her husband, who, when he appeared, was frailer and older than she and had simply put a thick jacket over his pajamas to greet us. Both happily showed us their house and outbuildings and told us some of its history. The main structure was built 350 years ago, a massive fortress against snow and cold, which once was considerable. Some parts had been added, other parts restored. Up until forty years ago, the roof was thatched, but when that proved to be too much to keep up, they converted to a tile roof. The open courtyard from where we viewed the house was fronted by the main building, clearly the living quarters. Persimmons drying on cords festooned one wall. Small, hot red peppers were drying, too, and onions from the garden. Tools of the years and ladders were hung against the storehouse.