The Art of Japanese Architecture. David Young
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cross the moat, he had to pass through the main gate (Ōtemon) and follow a labyrinthine passage that included many gates and dead ends. There are three basic types of castle gates. The first, kōraimon (Korean style gate), has a gabled roof resting on posts. The second, uzumimon (embedded gate), is built directly into the walls of the castle, while the third, yaguramon, is a wooden structure with a hip-and-gable roof resting on a stone wall. Uzumimon gates, basically holes in the wall, could be sealed with dirt and gravel if the enemy attempted to force its way inside, and yaguramon gates could be barred with heavy wooden doors reinforced with iron plates. The main gate played both a defensive and symbolic role in that its size and structure provided an indication of a daimyo’s influence and wealth.
In the Edo Period, commoners were normally forbidden to build residential gates. When average citizens began building gates for their private homes in the Meiji Period, they tended to be quite imposing to balance the large roofs of traditional houses. In recent years, there has been a tendency to construct residences with a more open and friendly design.
Simple wooden gate with a shingled roof and stone path.
Ceremonial gate to the 1894 Satō country house, Oomagari City, Akita Prefecture.
There is no set design for garden gates and they can be made with a variety of materials.
Japanese garden entrance in Toyama Japan with a wooden gate, bamboo fence, and stone path.
Entrance to the garden of Tenjuan subtemple at Nanzenji Temple, Kyoto.
A walled compound with an entrance gate, however, continues to be a popular status marker. Traditional style houses, as well as some modern homes, have small gardens, frequently set apart by an informal fence and entrance gate. The purpose of a residential garden and gate is not so much to impress others as to provide a sense of intimacy and relaxation in a busy world. Whereas formal entry gates are primarily for others, residential gardens and gates are for their owners.
Pre-Buddhist Cultures
In prehistoric times, people entered Japan from various parts of Asia. Originally hunters and gatherers, these early inhabitants eventually developed pottery, agriculture, permanent settlements, and increasingly sophisticated types of architecture. People were organized into clans, one of which gradually assumed dominance to establish the Yamato State and an imperial line that is still on the throne today.
Pre-Ceramic Period (?–10000 BCE)
During the last Ice Age (Pleistocene Epoch), much of the water in the oceans was captured by glaciers, thereby lowering sea levels around the world. Some time before the end of the Pleistocene, when Kyushu and Hokkaido were still easily accessible from the Asian mainland because of low sea levels, different groups of hunting and gathering peoples entered Japan. Some entered southern Japan via the Korean Peninsula; some entered northern Japan via the northern island of Sakhalin; while others may have come directly from the south by boat.
Thus the Japanese people are not a homogeneous race as many believe. These early Paleolithic inhabitants had a variety of sophisticated stone tools but they lacked pottery or settled agriculture. Very little is known about their appearance or way of life, though archaeological evidence is gradually accumulating.
A flatland building (heichi jūkyo) in which poles were sloped to the top and thatched, serving as both walls and roof. The ground served as the floor.
A flatland building reconstructed at the Ikegami-sone prehistoric site, Osaka Prefecture, in which the thatched roof is supported on walls made of reed-covered poles.
Jōmon Period (10000–300 BCE)
About 12,000 years ago, when the Ice Age ended, the climate warmed and sea levels climbed, cutting Japan off from the mainland. A new culture was born in the rapidly spreading deciduous forests, and pottery came into use. These ceramic people are called Jōmon (meaning “rope-marked”) due to the practice of decorating their coil pottery by pressing a piece of rope into the damp surfaces of newly made vessels, some of which were utilitarian while others had wildly exuberant shapes.
The Jōmon people continued the hunting and gathering way of life of their ancestors, supplemented by small-scale horticulture, including some grains. Recent evidence suggests that toward the end of the Jōmon Period, inhabitants in temperate regions of Japan may have experimented with wet rice agriculture on a small scale.
Jōmon buildings can be classified in different ways. According to one classification system, heichi jūkyo (flatland dwellings), originally developed in the pre-ceramic period, were simple structures in which the ground served as the floor; tateana jūkyo (pit dwellings) were roofs, or walls with roofs, constructed over circular or rectangular pits; and hottatebashira tatemono (buildings with poles sunk in the ground) were larger buildings with a floor and a roof supported by a post-and-beam structure in which the posts were buried directly in the earth rather than resting on rocks as in much of the architecture in later periods. Sometimes, the floor of the latter was at ground level (hiraya tatemono), and at other times it was raised off the ground (takayuka), as in the case of storehouses or observation towers.
Pit houses were not suitable for wet areas or in places where there was inadequate drainage. Under the right conditions, however, pit houses helped provide protection against cold in the winter and heat in the summer.
Mound of Emperor Nintoku, the largest tomb mound in Japan. Surrounded by three moats, the mound has three terraces on which were placed rows of haniwa, ceramic figures in the shapes of humans, animals, buildings, etc. Drawing based on a model at the Osaka Prefectural Chikatsu Asuka Museum.
Elevated storehouses, used to protect rice, eventually developed into early Shinto shrines. Based on a model at the National Museum of Japanese History.
Temporary flatland structures, pit houses, and raised floor structures all continued to be employed in the Yayoi Period and even persisted into historic times for use by commoners. Until recently, it was believed that elevated storehouses were first developed in the Yayoi Period. Recent findings, however, indicate that storehouses had earlier, Jōmon origins.
Yayoi Period (300 BCE–300 CE)
Around 300 BCE, or a little earlier, new people and cultural influences arrived from the Korean Peninsula, bringing metallurgy, large-scale wet rice agriculture based on irrigation, and wheel-made pottery. Originally centered in northern Kyushu, the Yayoi people initially appear to have fought the indigenous Jōmon people, but eventually mingled and interbred with them. This mixture provided the basis for the present-day Japanese people and culture. Many of the distinctive traits of Japanese culture date from these People of Wa, as they were called in early Chinese historical records.