Gasshō-zukuri are perhaps most recognizable and distinguished for their high, peaked roofs. Gasshō-zukuri Minka homes in Gokayama surrounded by snow. The wooden columns and crossbeams, intricately interlocked without the use of nails, formed the skeletal structure. These openings would be covered with shoji paper screens, and also with heavier wooden doors.
Merchants of kaidan tansu side windows#
Stone was sometimes used to strengthen or establish foundations but is not employed for the home itself.Īs in other forms of traditional Japanese architecture, wooden columns support all the weight of the structure, so the walls are not load-bearing and can afford to have spaces left in them for windows or entryways. Sometimes baked-clay roofing tiles were used in addition to thatch. Grass and straw are used for the roofing thatch, and for mushiro and tatami mats placed on the floor.
External walls were often completed with the addition of bamboo and clay internal walls were not fixed, and consisted of sliding wood lattice doors, or wood-and-paper screens called fusuma. The base skeletal structure of the home, roof, walls, and support columns are made from wood. Thus, nōka are generally made almost exclusively from wood, bamboo, clay and various kinds of grasses and straw. Farmers could not afford to import anything expensive or difficult to come by into their small villages. The central concept in the design and construction of minka is the use of cheap and readily available materials. The tremendous regional variation of minka has also been preserved in parks such as Nihon Minka-en in Kawasaki, where examples from around Japan are kept on display. Of particular note is the so called gasshō-zukuri ( 合掌造り, literally "clasped-hands" style ?), which is preserved in two villages in central Japan, Shirakawa in Gifu Prefecture and Gokayama in Toyama Prefecture, that together have been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Minka are generally treated as historic landmarks, and many have been designated for preservation by local municipalities or the national government.
There is also a subclass of the farm house style found in fishing villages, which is called gyoka ( 漁家 ?). Minka come in wide range of styles and sizes, largely as a result of differing geographic and climatic conditions as well as the lifestyle of the inhabitants, but most generally fall into one of two major classifications: farm houses nōka ( 農家 ?) and town houses machiya ( 町屋 ?).
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