Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/617

 CHAP. V. DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 501 Regents follow much on the same lines as those of the Mikado, but their construction is much more solid, and their decoration much bolder in character. The fortified enclosures round them are increased in number, those of the castle at Kunamoto now destroyed, which was built by Kato Kyomasa towards the end of the 1 6th century, resembling somewhat the castles of the Middle Ages with two or three outer courts and a keep within the inner enclosure. DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. If in the palaces of the Mikado and the Daimyos architecture is reduced to its simplest expression, in the Japanese houses it is non-existent, so that the aspect of the streets in the great cities presents a dull and monotonous appearance. The entrance doorway is the only external feature in which there is some variety, but even in the most important houses it is only a simplified version of those found in the more ordinary temples, there being similar street regulations against display as in China. The houses have rarely an upper storey, and the design consists of a square or rectangular block covered with a tiled roof, the interior being subdivided into rooms by sliding screens (fusuma) about 6 ft. high. In the better houses there may sometimes be internal courts with buildings on all sides or all round. The chief feature of the Japanese house is the verandah which faces the gardens, and serves as a passage to all the rooms. The floor of the house is raised about 10 in. above the ground, there being no basement of any kind, and the importance of the room depends on the number of mats which cover the floor; those mats measure 6 ft. by 3 ft. each. In a middle-class dwelling the chief reception room may have fifteen or sixteen mats, the smaller rooms four to eight or ten ; by pushing aside the screens the whole house can be thrown into one room, and, as a rule, the side facing the south is thrown open during the day to ventilate the house. The design of the verandahs is of the greatest simplicity, with none of the elabora- tion found in China, and the decoration of the interior is confined to the upper part of the walls above the screens. In the chief reception room is always a recess or alcove in which hanging pictures known as kakemonos are suspended, but never more than three in number, and a vase of flowers. The treasures of the house are always stored away in a fireproof storehouse made with walls of mud or clay, and known as a godown. It is not yet possible to foresee what the throwing open of Japan is likely to evolve in the development of their civil and