DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27192#0573
502
JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE
Book IX.
domestic architecture. Their temples, whether Buddhist or
Shinto, 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.
JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE
Book IX.
domestic architecture. Their temples, whether Buddhist or
Shinto, 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.