Minka
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- This is an article about traditional-style Japanese houses. For the model and film actress, see Minka (model).
Minka (民家, literally house(s) of the people) are residences in the traditional styles of Japanese peasants. Examples of one type, the gasshō-zukuri (合掌造り, literally praying-hands style), are preserved in two villages, Shirakawa in Gifu Prefecture, and Gokayama in Toyama Prefecture. The gasshō-zukuri are distinguished by their high thatched roofs, and overall simple construction. Today, these villages are designated World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. Minka varied regionally, and parks such as Nihon Minka-en in Kawasaki display collections from around Japan.
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[edit] Types of Minka
Minka can be found with a wide degree of variations, not only geographically, but also in terms of the lifestyle of their inhabitants. Farmhouses are called nōka (農家), while those in fishing villages are often called gyoka (漁家), and those in towns or cities would be called machiya (町屋). Homes designated as falling within the category of minka are almost exclusively those belonging to peasants, fishermen, and farmers: the working classes of feudal Japan. However, sometimes lesser nobility (lower-ranking, less-wealthy samurai) would live in homes whose style fell under the umbrella of the term minka. Despite these variations, however, there are many general basic design features which remain the same for all minka.
[edit] Overall Construction
The central concept in the design and construction of minka homes is the use of cheap and readily available materials. Peasants could not afford to import anything expensive or difficult to come by into their small villages. Thus, these homes are made almost exclusively from wood, bamboo, clay and various kinds of grasses and straw. The base skeletal structure of the home, roof, walls and support columns are made from wood. 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.
Grasses and straw are used for the roofing thatch, and for mushiro and tatami mats placed on the floor. Sometimes baked-clay roofing tiles were used in addition to thatch. Stone was sometimes used to strengthen or establish foundations but is not employed for the home itself.
As 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. These openings would be covered with shoji paper screens, and also with heavier wooden doors. The wooden columns and crossbeams, intricately interlocked without the use of nails, formed the skeletal structure.
[edit] Roofing
Gasshō-zukuri are perhaps most recognizable and distinguished for their high, peaked roofs. This serves somewhat as a substitute for a chimney, as mentioned above, and might also have allowed for extensive storage space. But the primary purpose of shaping minka roofs in this manner was to accommodate for the extensive precipitation experienced in many parts of Japan. A steeply peaked roof allows rain and snow to fall straight off it, preventing water from getting through the roof into the home, and to a lesser extent preventing the thatch itself from getting too wet and beginning to rot.
There are three basic styles of roofs, which bear strong similarities to roofs seen in other styles of Japanese architecture. Most townhouses (machiya) have gabled kirizuma (切妻) roofs, covered in shingles or tiles, and slanting down on either side of the house. Often, stones would be placed atop the shingles to prevent them from being blown away. By contrast, the majority of farmhouses (nōka) have either thatched yosemune (寄せ棟) style hipped roofs, which slant down on four sides, or the more elaborate irimoya (入母屋) roof with multiple gables and a combination of thatched sections and shingled sections.
At the roof's peak and other places where roof sections came together, special roof caps would be needed. On tiled or shingled roofs, these treatments would consist simply of more shingles or tiles. These covers, particularly at the corners of the roof, would often serve as the only decoration on these simple homes; gargoyles or other figures carved in clay or other materials would often be placed here at the ends of the roof caps.
[edit] Farmhouse Interior
The interior of a minka home was generally divided into two sections, one of compacted earth called doma (土間) and a raised area. This raised area would generally be around 20 inches (50cm) above the level of the doma, and would be covered in tatami or mushiro mats. Cooking would be done in the doma, in a clay furnace-like oven called a kamado (竈). The doma was used for most cooking and farming-related tasks, and usually included a wooden sink, food barrels, and a large waterjug to store water brought in from an outside well.
The raised area had a built-in hearth, called an irori (囲炉裏). However, there was no chimney connecting directly from the hearth to the outside, only a small smoke vent in the roof would sometimes be present. Smoke would rise up into the area of the high and spacious roof; thus, the inhabitants of the home did not breathe in the smoke and soot, but it did blacken the thatch, which would have to be replaced fairly often.
Though there were many various possible arrangements of the rooms within a home, one of the most common, called yomadori (四間取り), included four rooms off the doma, on the raised, floored portion of the house. A large wooden door called an ōdo would serve as the front entrance to the building. Though there were four rooms off the doma, all were more or less communal space, since one had to travel through one room to get to another. Two of these rooms would be used for communal family activities, including the one with the irori hearth. Sometimes a small oil lamp would be used for light, but due to the cost of oil, more often the hearth would be the only artificial light in the home.
The family would gather around this hearth at mealtime, and sit in a prearranged order by social status within the family. The side furthest from the doma was called the yokoza and was where the head of the household would sit. Another side was for the housewife and other female family members, the third for male family members and guests, and the fourth side of the hearth was occupied by a pile of firewood.
The other rooms served as bedrooms and as space for entertaining guests, and would include a tokonoma, an alcove still commonly found in modern Japanese homes, where flowers, scrolls, or other such things would be displayed. The bath and toilet were often built as separate structures, or as additions outside the main structure of the house but under the eaves of the roof.
[edit] Townhouses
Townhouses, or machiya, were by necessity arranged somewhat differently from their rural cousins. The main structure, called omoya (母屋), would stand in front of an attached storehouse (kura, 倉) or a separated one called a zashiki (座敷). The doma generally extended from the front of the house back to the storehouse, and would have three or four rooms built off of it. The frontmost room, closest to the street, would be used to conduct business deals, or as a shop, which gives it the name mise (店, literally shop or store). The middle room was used as an office and to entertain guests. Meanwhile, the room closest to the rear of the home would look out upon the backyard garden, and would contain a tokonoma and be used for most of the family's daily activities.
Townhouses often had a second story, making them especially different from farmhouses. This is where the family would sleep, and store items used on a more regular basis than those possessions kept in the storehouse in the back.
[edit] Reference
- Suzuki Mitsuru (1985). "Minka." Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan. Tokyo: Kodansha Ltd.
