Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/618

 502 JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE BOOK IX. domestic architecture. Their temples, whether Buddhist or Shintd, with the numerous other structures in the sacred enclosures, will probably still be built in the old timber style as being most in conformity with their customs and religious rites, but already within the last thirty years a large number of buildings, such as palaces, colleges, hospitals, banks, and other commercial structures, as also a few private houses, have been erected in brick or stone which are more or less copies of similar work in Europe and the United States. In their mansions and private houses the Japanese dress, still worn throughout the country, requires that the living rooms should be in accordance with native customs, and this has led to a compromise, whereby in the larger mansions a wing has been added in which the reception rooms are all built in what is known as the "Western style." Hitherto in their domestic buildings extreme simplicity and an avoidance of ostentation has always been the rule, extending even to the royal palaces, so that no evolutions of architectural style may be expected in that direction. In their civil work this rule has not been observed, if we may judge by the few representations which have been published. If, however, the new steel skeleton structures which, starting in the United States, have now been generally adopted in European towns, are found to be capable of resisting the shocks of earthquakes, their employment in Japan might lead to a new development of architectural style, seeing that, in another branch of construction, that of carpentry, the workers occupy a very high position.