Inspiration – Shirakawa-go and Takayama

Last week was Golden Week here in Japan, a string of holidays that fall within the same week every year, and many people take that time to spend time with family and tour around the county. It’s a congested time to take a vacation, and for that reason, along with Covid, we’ve opted to hunker down at home for the past few years during Golden Week. But this year we decided we’d brave the crowds and take a little trip to Shirakawa-go and Takayama, about a 5 hour drive from Tokyo.

Many of you are probably familiar with Shirakawa-go or have at least seen pictures. It’s a UNESCO world heritage site, featuring a village of houses with steep straw roofs built with some really unique construction methods. Takayama is about an hour or so from Shirakawa-go and has a historic shopping district and also an open air museum (Hida Folk Village) dedicated to showing and educating people about the region’s unique form of architecture.

So on to the highlights.

On of our first day we stopped at Hida Folk Village in Takayama. The house and store house to the left below both feature the gassho-zukuri construction style this region is famous for. I love the straw roofs. You can see the moss that has started to cover the main houses roof on the right. The building in the foreground has a wood shingle roof, weighted down with stones.

Here’s a cool door cutouts on an entrance door from one of the oldest houses in the village.

Most of these houses were somewhere around 200 years old or so, and in almost all of them you can find some beautiful adzed textures on nearly every post and beam. Good chouna shiage inspiration.

This old kitchen is great. The beams with their curved ends are a fantastic example of using the shape of the tree for maximum strength and utility.

And check out the kitchen sink, carved out of a massive log!

Here’s a look at the inside of one of the gassho-zukuri buildings.

The first floor of these houses were framed out in a more or less conventional style, using post and beams joined with a variety of joinery. Starting from the second floor up, where the roof starts, is where things get really cool. The massive logs that make up the principle rafters are essentially hewn logs that run the length of the roof (from the eve to the ridge). The largest house we saw was 5 stories tall and had rafters that were 11 meters long (about 36′)! There’s no joinery holding these in place, rather the pointed ends are simply pressed up against the beam that runs the length of the eve.

Here’s another type of log support that runs from the second floor up to the ridge. This one was notched for use as a ladder.

The scale of all of this woodwork is hard to convey in pictures, but in the image below you can start to get a sense of it, and also start to see more of the construction method. Not much of any joinery is used, instead all of the roof parts are essentially tied together. There are pegs and notches used to locate parts to one another, but it’s rope and vines that are doing the work of locking everything together.

Below you can see an example of a beam for the 3rd floor that is simply installed by resting in place on a peg inserted into one of the massive logs. A metal cable support has been more recently added.

Back on the exterior of another house from Hida Folk Village. These carved brackets seemed to be another unique feature of houses from this area.

Now on to Shirakawa-go.

Here’s an interior shot from the first floor of one of the gassho-zukuri houses. You can see how at this level the house is more conventionally built (as far as timber frames are concerned). The beams in this house are once again absolutely massive. Everything is dark an black from 200 years of daily fires in the hearth.

Here’s another interior shot of the roof from the same house. Nice hewing work!

And further up towards the peak. This was the 4th floor of this house. Most of these houses used the upper floors for a combination of sericulture (silk worm farming), occasional living quarters, and storage.

Some really refined details like the carved ranma below also popped up from time to time. These old houses had a cool balance between the humble construction with the hewn beams, ropework and thatched roofs, yet there was usually some area of the main living space that featured some ornate work as well.

Here’s an exterior shot that really exemplifies what I love about traditional Japanese architecture. Everything is structural and functional, with few purely decorative elements. Yet all the individual components form a really beautiful, balanced design, and everything has been well crafted for the sake of longevity and durability.

Another interior shot of a rather large house supported by more massive beams.

Up in the attic in the same house. Some of these timbers seem to be newer replacements from a relatively recent renovation of the roof.

This building is also pretty interesting. The plaque outside described this style of building as being a temporary gassho-zukuri house for families who lost their homes to fire or other disasters. The structure was definitely more modest in size, and built more simply, and directly on the ground.

Yet the interior features the same construction method of logs tied and bound together.

Here’s a beautiful example of some scribing work where the horizontal beam meets one of the large roof supports.

And here’s yet one more interesting structure.

The open structure below was a unique opportunity to catch a glimpse of the inner workings of a Japanese structure, particularly the many nuki (horizontal braces). It’s also interesting to see the diagonal bracing, which is relatively uncommon on traditional architecture in Japan. To be honest I didn’t even notice the diagonal braces until reviewing these pictures at home. I’m curious if they are original or some later addition added for structural support? They sure have an aged patina that closely matches the rest of the structure.

From the same building, here’s a look the foundation with a nice wedged tenon sticking out.

Here’s another interesting set of cutouts on a pair of doors from a gassho-zukuri horse barn.

And to wrap things up, here’s one of my favorite buildings from the trip. I love how the kayabuki, thatched roof, has been cut around the protruding engawa, which itself has a nice wood shingle roof. Such a nice balance of lines and textures.

Hope you enjoyed this quick look at Shirakawa-go and Takayama. It’s a magical place, and if you have the chance to visit, I highly recommend it.

Thanks for visiting.