Jokamachi Spatial System

JOKAMACHI SPATIAL SYSTEM

TUTORS: MARCO TRISCIUOGLIO JINNAI HIDENOBU ,

JASENKO SPAHIC

Za Seku i Seju

JOKAMACHI SPATIAL SYSTEM

ジョカマチ・スパイラル・システム

“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.”

Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

JOKAMACHI SPATIAL SYSTEM

TIMELINE

ANCIENT PERIOD

タイムライン

KODAI 538 – 1185

PREHISTORIC PERIOD KOFUN 250 – 538

Nara 710 – 794

Asuka 538 – 710

Heian 794 – 1185

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PREMODERN PERIOD KINSEI 1568 – 1867 Kamakura

MODERN PERIOD

1185 – 1333

KINDAI 1868 – 1945 Azuchi - Momoyama 1568 – 1600

CONTEMPORARY PERIOD GENDAI Tokugawa or Edo 1600 – 1867

Azuchi - Momoyama 1568 – 1600

MIDDLE AGES CHUSEI 1185 – 1568

1945 – 1989

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GLOSSARY 用語集

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D Daimyo - were powerful Japanese feudal lords who, until their decline in the early Meiji period, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings.

E Engawa - or en is an edging strip of non-tatami-matted flooring, usually wood or bamboo. The ens may run around the rooms, on the outside of the building, in which case they resembles a porch or sunroom.

G Gagaku - Japanese classical music that has been performed at the Imperial Court in Kyoto for several centuries.

H Honden - also called shinden or sometimes shoden, as in Ise Shrine’s case, is the most sacred building at a Shinto shrine, intended purely for the use of the enshrined kami, usually symbolized by a mirror or sometimes by a statue.

Hokura - or Chozuya is a miniature Shinto shrine either found on the precincts of a larger shrine and dedicated to folk kami, or on a street side, enshrining kami not under the jurisdiction of any large shrine.

JOKAMACHI SPATIAL SYSTEM

J Jokamachi - Japanese castle town.

Jobosei - Urban plan system imported from China.

Jinja - Word used to indicate a Shinto shrine.

K Kabuki - Japanese classical theatre.

Ken - Japanese traditional unit of measurement equal to six Japanese feet, that is about 1.82 metres. Dissimilar to most units, this one has not Chinese origin but results from local development. The use of the it was standardized for residential architecture. In a grid it coincides with the use of tatami floor mats and their arrangement in a space.

Kyogen - A form of traditional Japanese comic theater.

Kuroko - In kabuki, are stagehands in traditional Japanese theatre, who dress all in black.

Kyakuma - A traditional Japanese guest room.

Kendo - A modern Japanese martial art.

Kami - spirits or phenomena that are worshipped in the religion of Shinto.

Kagura - is a Japanese word referring to a specific type of Shinto theatrical dance.

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S Shaku - or Japanese foot, is a Japanese unit of length derived from the Chinese chi, originally based upon the distance measured by a human hand from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the forefinger.

Shimenawa - are lengths of laid rice straw or hemp rope used for ritual purification in the Shinto religion.

Sando - is the road approaching either a Shinto shrine or a Buddhist temple.

Shogun - was the military dictator of Japan during the period from 1185 to 1868

T Tokonoma - A built-in recessed space in a Japanese style reception room, in which items for artistic appreciation are displayed.

Tamagaki - A fence surrounding a Japanese Shinto shrine, a sacred area or an imperial palace.

Temizuya - is a Shinto water ablution pavilion for a ceremonial purification rite known as temizu.

Toro - is a traditional lantern made of stone, wood, or metal. Like many other elements of Japanese traditional architecture, it originated in China.

JOKAMACHI SPATIAL SYSTEM

INDEX 索引

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ABSTRACT

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14 INTRODUCTION

32 MA

SHINTO SHRINE

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54 CHINESE GRID

64 CASTLE TOWN

CASTLE TOWN TYPES

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MICHI

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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ABSTRACT 抽象

Japanese culture remarks many times, in almast all of its traits, the concept of emptiness. The meaning of this notion is rooted, in terms of traditional culture, in all the aspects of their life behavior.

It comes out quietly from any kind of context related to their heritage and knowledge, handed down through a sign language expression, from writing, music and tradi tional cooking to spiritual consciousness,

sense of proportions and almost all forms of art. In fact, it also represents a sort of unit measure that comprehend both space

and time together and stands as a basic principle of practically everything.

Especially in Japanese idioma, every sign could inlcude at the same time, in itself or also in combination with other characters, different meanings belonging to the same ideographic system. This thesis takes its steps from this theorical concepts.

Considering a dynamic and circular relation between outside and inside, that characterizes Japanese living culture, transition seems to be the most appropriate word to describe as well the urban spatiality in the land of the rising sun as a pure constitutive dimension.

Nervertheless, this issue can be read and associated, through history, from the space related to the typical house until the urban scale morphology developement.

Starting from the analysis of the term ma in all its diverse but, at the same time, close 14

significances of pause, interval, between, until room and so forth, in many different filds, the path ends with the categorization of the jokamachi, the Japanese castle towns, in different groups, according to their urban pattern. They represent a sort of a urban ma, not so much with regard to urban development over time but instead according to spatial composition from which the Japanese city took shape.

Although the birth and the subsequent growth of the Japanese city takes its origin from the structure grid of the Chinese city, a parallelism and a time comparison with the western world can take place considering its uniqueness anomaly, in the Asian region, about its historiographical category and capitalistic evolution during Middle Ages.

Heijokyo, renamed after Nara, was the first “fixed” capital (710 - 794) of the Japanese history. It is actually a case of a urban traslatio from the Chinese capital Chang’an. In fact, the first Japanese capital is also called the first “chinese” capital of Japan.

Kamakura, a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, about 50 kilometres south-west of Tokyo, home of the first shogun goverment and city symbol of medieval Japan, represents a turning point. A sort of a urban rebellion, compared to the rigid grid imported from the continent, which will anticipate the future developemets of urbanism, invoking, on an urban scale, a native pattern.

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Enso.“It symbolizes the Absolute enlightenment, strength, elegance, the Universe, and the void; it can also symbolize the Japanese aesthetic itself”.

Enso symbol.

Source: /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enso

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INTRODUCTION 序文

For more than a decade, until today, Asian urban centres are changing the face of an entire continent with exponential progression, affecting inevitably the urban environment in all of its fields, and modifying the life of its inhabitants with a unique character.

Unexpected and rapid changes symbolize, almost always, an unrepeatable occasion for the birth of new chances. The idea that brings a real possibility of unlimited financial resources, in order to give shape to the future metropolis, attracted the most famous international firms from all around the world.

The result, in addition to positive changes in society, is also rediscovering a different way to proceed, against the previous one, by small scale projects, in relation to new urban pattern conditions.

In the country known for its co-existence between secular tradition and latest innovation, the bond among emptiness and fullness assumes a significant if not crucial role in terms of contradiction and harmony, taking still into account how architecture is aproaching and changing its developement through the years. In any city, processes of growth produce urban voids, therefore new alternatives but, in Japan, with a very different frequency than North American and European cities.

In fact, for instance, its capital Tokyo, the world’s largest city, has an avarage house lifetime of 26 years, compared, for instance, to the 104 years of North American’s 16

city centers, or to the 140 years of London’s habitations. A very significant difference between places where urban growth, renovation and demolition assumes diverse sense of timing, conditioning, in very different ways, the appereance and the perception of each edge of any facade of an intire city.

This typical urban trait produced, in the course of time, a peculiar urban landscape condition of contradictions, openign a debate between large and minimum scale interventions, full and empty spaces which, if considered from a broader perspective, represent, in purely architectural terms, the basic relationship of polarity between the casing and the space contained in it.

The relation between space and time seems truly to be the first cultural and more significant difference of all. It surely changes the way to see things and perceive places, by influencing the approach of the the surrounding proportion and element disposition.

Its meaning, compared to western cultures, offers a richer conception where only the personal presence is placed at the center of the scene and, moreover, is the only one that can activate a frame that without it appears to be neutral.

Western interpretations of vacuum, such as lack, absence and negation, are replaced by many words that refer to a more open space, in closeness to nature, in search of the sacre throughout the world where humankind lives.

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“Forgetting the result you see japanese architecture, forgetting japanese architecture you see the designer, forgetting the designer you see the mind, forgetting the mind you understand Japanese architecture.”

Zeami Motokiyo Kogyo Tsukioka Source:

https://www.abebooks.com/art-prints/Nogaku-zue-JAPAN-NOH-PLAYS-Tsukioka/19675867027/bd

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INTRODUCTION

NEWGRANGE ニューグレンジ

The relation between the space and the material body gives shape to an aestethic and visual architectural concept. In fact “only through the form we can perceive the void”, putting in evidence the contrast between form and space, a basic but crucial point in design approach.

This essential practice assumes different aspects when referring to different or even opposite part of the world, but the most substantial gap seems stands at the beginning.

Considering a first form of construction, just as confined space, it can be noted, since ancient times, the use of underground ambient like burial chambers or caves where sacred rituals took place. Above or below the ground, they almost always represented, across history, an empty architecture designed to eternity.

In this closed rooms the conception of perception is exclusively immediate and sensorial, if compared to an external open location. Placed in a confined space, a person anknowledges the emptiness that surrounds him and tries to find an effective position whitin it according to the proportions noticed.

Indeed, from the Aurignacian culture, in the Paleolithic era, to the Neolithic period, under different forms of thought, the main aim was to kept life even in the afterlife, maintaining the dig structure in a manner analogous to how the lived house was con18

ceived. But the most important step is when, from 4th millennium BC, which marks the transition from Prehistory to History, the funeral chamber shifts from being an object to a real architecture.

The basic composition was very often the same, until the beginning of the historical period. A main circular body, the biggest and leading room, connected to the outside with a single entrance by a long hallway.

The Newgrange in County Meath, Irland, edified arounf 3200 BC, is an interesting example of how this kind of structures were built, giving also more information about the meaning and the principles used to construct these type of megalithic monuments.

The materials used and the given form, as well as the shape of the plant, refere to the topological space of caves.

Furthermore, the dome shape, denoted by the presence of the false vault covered with ground, stands out even more the centrality of the plant, in addition to use a construction system that is statically and structurally more effective compared to a flat configuration.

Earth and stone layers forms the large mound where grass grows, while large rounded cubblestones and white quartz stones covers the facade circumference.

There are three principal reasons that motivate the presence of earth that covers most of the top surface of this construction, which forms the false vault. The firts one is related

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to the stability of the structure, the second one is referred to the action of burying and the third one is to point out, through the curvature, a symbolic meaning of terrestrial pregnancy.

In fact, a passive presence of earth, linked to the fecundity theme, and the solar rotation, related to the time factor and thus to the life cycle, are two of the main elements that integrate and characterized the magalithic religious proliferation. A precise solar allingnement allows, at 9.45 a.m in the morning of winter solstice, the entrance of the rising light which passes through the gallery and floods the chamber at the end of the path.

The spring beginning is therefore simbolically connected to the fertilization of the earth by the sun that finds place inside an empty covered volume, metaphorically comparable to the maternal womb.

Even though there have been diverse debates as to its original purpose, symbolic and spiritual aspects, as can be intuited when dealing with religious sculptures, are at the base core of the significance and reasoning of their construction.

According to several different theories, supported by many archaeologists, the main intention of its realization has spiritual purposes. It is spaculated that native agriculturalists, who built the monument, were devoted to the ”cult of the dead” which were, at that time, one of many particular form of European Neolithic religion, such as solar believes or still others with geometrical and astronomical religious significance.

The archaeologist Michael J. O’Kelly, who actually was the first person in modern times, precisely in 1967, to witness this sun light phenomenon inside the tunnel, led the excavations at the site between 1962 and1975.

The death ritual is evidenced by the discovery of both burnt and unburtn human bones in the central chambers. Grave goods of chalk were found near the human remains like other artifacts, such as pendants, bone beads and polished stone balls. All objects that came from a typical Irish Neolithic period that belonged to the protagonists of the funeral ritual.

Another clear proof of how this enclosed space has represented a sort of home for after life, conceived as an intimate space.

Tacking into account a purely spatial discourse between empty and full space in the Newgrange, and comparing this ratio over time, also in other constructions, it can be noted that the interior space remained proportional in realation to human dimensions.

Despite a wider internal space volume which increased in parallel with the quality life improvement, even if always linked precisely to the earthly life’s habitation size, such as funerary monuments in Tholos, Greece, the external structure grows exponentially, especially in the case of the Egyptian pyramids.

Taking as reference the Pyramid of Cheops, the biggest one, it still remains a substantial difference between the internal void and the built part. An emblematic datum is highlighted by the 0.082%, which is the total vacuum volume compared to the filled one.

Moreover, it can be deduced, that the internal void, in all this kind of diverse funerary monuments, in terms of time construction and culture, should be within certain limits that evoke the continuity of quotidian life.

Taking into account the Egyptian case, the main reason of this gap among fullness and emptiness is due to the importance and the uniqueness, in religious and ritual terms, attributed the their recipients.

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The grave emerges explicitly from the ground changing radically the surrounding environment which, subjected to an unprecedented environmental impact, goes from being a landscape devoid of life to an abstract, symbolic and monumental scenery which is even more characterized by the implied alignment of the other smaller nearby pyramids.

Returning to Ireland, it could be pursued a similar discourse with regard to landscape impression and object disposition. Like archaeologist O’Kelly claims: “cannot be regarded as other than the expression of some kind of powerful force or motivation, brought to the extremes of aggrandizement in these three monuments, the cathedrals of the megalithic religion.” there is a sort of intentional relation with other two monuments located a few chilometres away.

The Knowth, situated on the North-West and the Dowth on the North-Est from the Newgrange which is a little lower between the other two.

It is suggestive to evidence, cosidering the period, the harmoniously integration and realtion established with the sourrounding landscape taking into account the sensations that could be generated in the observer, nonetheless it is a funerary handiwork architecture.

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INTRODUCTION

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Newgrange interior.

ジョカマチ・スパイラル・システム

Source: /thehistoryhub.com/newgrange-facts-pictures.htm

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INTRODUCTION

NEWTON’S CENOTAPH ニュートンのセノタフ

Monumenality, symbology and emptiness are three main characteristics which can be attribuited to another funerary commemoration, such as the utopian proposal that Étienne-Louis Boullée, in 1784, designed in honor to the English scientist Isaac Newton.

He thought that these monuments should be designed in order to “withstand the ravages of time” such as the Egyptian pyramids, which evokes the melancholy image of immutable mountains. Also in this case, sunlight and deep shadows caused by solar position and weather conditions are not excluded to be a part of this envision through its pure spherical design, in addition to representing, according to the author, a sense of perfection and majesty.

The choise of a vast sphere for this model, which symbolize the vast cosmos, is motivated to envelop essentially the astronomer inside his own discovery, but also to take to the limit the relation between emptiness and fullness. In fact, this geometric figure is the only one that with minimum outside surface gained a maximum internal space.

Besides, thanks to this elementary figure, proportions and symmetry were satisfied “because it is perfect regularity that gives a form its beauty”.

In his unique manner, preferring the Greeks and Romans rigid heaviness orders, instead of the Roccoco’s levity, more regarded at that period of time, the French architect and theorist followed a pure natural and clean 22

elements for this cenotaph which gives the impression of a buried volume being embedded within a cylindrical base. It can be noticed some sort of parallelism and connection of tratement,between the internal and external space, in different times bur with a similar intent.

The Newton’s sarcophagus, the only material object, situated in the inside bottom centre, where the entrance for the internal part is situated, is illuminated by a sepulchral light which is, as a matter of fact, the only decoration present in the inner space.

All the other suggestions, such as the effect of planets and stars in the sky, located as holes on the vault surface, are produced by nature.

The word cenotaph derives from the Greek: kenotaphion (kenos, meaning “empty”, and taphos, meaning “tomb”).

The inside space, reachable by long tunnels below the central part of the dome, inverts the exterior lighting conditions. This volume was studied suitably with the purpose to disorient the onlooker, through the immensity of space and also because of the the only indication of human scale represented by the central tomb.

The proportion and the perceived space create a continuous surface around the visitor that is somehow forced to stand in the place assigned to him, unable to sotisfy his empty curiosity, he can osberve the universal immensity of the sky.

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Newton’s Cenotaph interior.

Source: /genevieveblons.blogspot.it/2016/06/le-tombeau-chez-veronese-claes.html

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INTRODUCTION

PANTHEON パンテオン

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An elaborate metaphor of the universe can be attribuited, considering the unique centrality and fullness of its dome and the monumentaliy of its interior space, to the Roman Pantheon, built between the 118 and the 127 AD, attribuited to the architect Apollodorus of Damascus.

here the inside space becomes a self-contained representation of the universe. But in contrast to the works of the visionary French architect, conceptual, evocative and exaggerated in scale, the Pantheon’s scale is physical, even though the creation of an inner universe have similarities.

Because of its vastness, mistery and humanity’s inclusion with it, the universe has become a symbol of permeance and power, replicated, through time, in all the historyical civilizations, in architectural shapes.

It has been reinterpreted, rescaled and reproduced with the main purpose of estimate its limitless and unknown dimension. These type of structures were also made with the principle aim of preserving political values.

One notable example in this sense can be represented by the Pantheon, commissioned by the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who politically asserted himself creating a tempel to gods designed with the shape of as an artificial universe in miniature.

The same use of a pure geometry in both cases is needed in order to make the interior apper infinite and thus credible to the spectator’s eyes. The use of optical illusions and the use of natural, external light is manipulated to create an inner luminous system with its own temporal reference. Natural elements lile light, air and rain are enhanced by the vacuum of the internal space.

This last is conceived as a cosmic theater in which the inner volume represents the scenery and the protagonists are the elements of nature. The sunlight disk that runs through the dome, the rain which measures the height, the air and sky that looks through the oculus.

According to Sigfried Giedion the Roman example, which marks the beginning of humanity’s interest in conceiving the vaulting system, represents an architectural breakthrough as he called “second space conception” and that “interior space and with it, the vaulting problem started to become the highest aim of architecture”.

Just like in the previous sample, as many other projects of Etienne Louis Boullée, such as the Temple of Nature and Reason, also

In partucular the Roman archetype, one of the largest expreriments with pure geometrical form, with still the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world, is 43.3 m high. Its geometrical conception is quite simple, a circle in a square. The fact that the diameter is equal to the the height allows to perceive the internal void as a big bubble, wrapped in the building as if it were a large mantle.

The dimensions and then the proportions

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chosen played a foundamental role in the perception of the inner volume. The sphere was built with the purpose of create an empty interior volume, that gives the perception of a countinous, immense and unique space.

Structurally this was possible at the time by the support of three upwardly decreasing cornices. Moreover, the lower cornice hide chambers that have a structural function to support the dome and lead the load forces from the top of the dome to the bottom. For what concerns the upper cornice, it is constituited of masonry rings, thicker at the bottom and gradually thinner up to the oculus.

This design was thought and constructed with the purpose of counteracting the outward thrust of the dome. No less important characters of uniqueness and globality are enhanced thanks to the fact that no figurative constraint is present between the dome and the drum. The vastness of the space is thus achieved by structural means to avoid any kind of space interruption. Just like in the Newton’s cenotaph proposal, the choise of a sphere, with its pure geometrical matrix design, reveals an attempt, both metaphorically and physically, to make sense of the world. As mentioned in the chapter before, the sphere is the geometrical form that has the largest ratio of interior volume compared to its surrface area, this make it the most compact body. It seems also a no ending space because of the lack of conrners, recreating a closed but infinite natural system. Specifically ,it can be said that there are three main feutures that can be attribuited to to Pantheon, in relation to its geometry and its simbolic meaning. Its centrality, the adoption of the circle as a simply superior or perfect geometrical configuration and the use of the vault as a representation of the heavenly field.

The sense of space and the manipulation of visual perception of spatiality are comparable both in the Roman’s case and in the

Boullée’s project. In the fitst model, it can be noticed that the size of the square cavities that coposed the coffering of the dome decreases with increase in the elevation from the ground. This accelerated perspective create the illusion that the viewer on the ground is farther away from the dome than his real position. Thus the oculus would seems farther away than it actually is.

In the similar way, the distances among the holes on the Newton’s cenotaph vault decrease while the height increases.

In this sense, symmetry plays also an important role to give the impression of a never-ending interior space. The chambers in the walls of the cylinder and the columns correspond on each and end of the three axis of symmetry. Another effect which has the purpose to suggest infinite expansion visible in the Pantheon is the ground pattering. An infinite ground effect is achieved through the repetition of circles and squares on the whole surface of the floor. A last effect that works inversely in the two case studies is created by time factor, the light.

Newton’s Cenotaph has been thought to stop time.The perception of it is impossible due to the lack of change in light throughout the day and the night. During daytime, the inside remains dark with static sparkling stars. Instead, during the night the inside is illumitated equally by a static sphere. In the Pantheon the oculus is used to obscure the area around the top of the dome., in this way the viewer from the ground cannot perceive where the vault ends.

As mantioned earlier, in the Roman dome the inner void creats a strong presence, or still better, it acquires a leading role. A similar connection can be done with the dark fugures that take part in the classical japanese theater. They are not visible, or otherwise they do not have a key role inside the performance, but are essential in order to reach the communication and the aim desired.

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Pantheon oculus.

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Source: /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome

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INTRODUCTION

IIT CAMPUS としょうかん

A parallel comparison in the same way could be done through the architecture of Mies Van Der Rohe, in particular starting from the IIT Library campus sketch but, in a more general view, also about all the philosophy around his thought.

In the year1940, the German arcnhitect was commissioned for work about a new master plan for the merging two universities, the Armour Institute and the Lewuis Institute in Chicago, in order to create the Illinois Institute of Technology.

The plan fot the IIT campus was one of the largest projects he ever conceived and developed for twenty years. Still today the campus conseves 20 of his major works, it is in fact called “the greatest concentration of Mies-designed buildings in the world”.

The project started drawing up a grid. Its dimension was determined by the room size, in relation to the expected activities that will occur in the campus. This meant space designed for classrooms, drafting rooms, and laboratory work. All these area, in turn, were based on forniture sizes. Then this fact caused a reverse planning order in which the firniture determined the room size, which then added up to the building size and then to the entire campus.

The plan for the campus was based on a 24’ by 24’ grid used as a mechanical tool for the location of the columns that created 28

the structural module. Essentially, the creation of the grid space between and inside the two to three story building. The expression of the structure, the exterior walls used like skin and the overlapping placement of building to allow space flow represent all characteristics of “universal space”.

Through his main concept he solved the problem related to the project and the inclusion of some parts, such as the auditorium and the stairs, that were located outside the main building blocks. The auditorium became an immense column-free space, permitting in this way to take advantage of space through free forms released from the structural grid.

The request, in the project of the IIT campus, to design multipurpose spaces, which therefore provide a universal use of the rooms, did not hinder his work, but rather encouraged it.

Mies rejects the will to create forms.

According to his project philosophy, the form is the result in which the concrete application of a constructive system is crystallized.

His thought about architecture manifests, also in this case, an inusual primordial approach to appreciate space, the way the materials were used and their related application to a logical construction.

A relationship between the building and the nature is an important concept also seen in

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other projects such as the Farnsworth House. That is the reason why the existing street grid was incorporated into the campus area in order to determine green areas and paths, in addition to proved to be a clear urban solution.

Through the use of materials like glass and steel the building kept a modern style during the developmento of this architectural project, mantaining the expression of modernity.

As a matter of fact, the project of the IIT campus represented for Mies the opportunity of refined the language of modern architecture, perfecting also his ideas on structure and proporsion.

By blocking some ideological thought, Mies architecture turns out to be a neutral necessary product. The sharp definition of its edges, the cold surface of its glasses, the lack of internal subdivisions and the interest of use defines it as an eternal, neutral and even void architecture. This weak characterization of the spaces is a feauture can be found throughout its all productions. In other words it can be said that his architecture is, through a linguistic comparison, intrasitive, or aims to express itself.

The 1944 prospective draw, that he outlined to work on the building of the library in Chicago, illustrates how transparency and emptiness are the basic characteristics of his idealistic doctrine.

Through the large windows of the building pass a diffused light which, with the absence of sharp shadows, gives a neutral, truthful and durable feeling.

On the contrary, the human figures, sketched like black and undefined silhouettes, remember the kurogo figures from the kabuki theatre. They are considered invisible characteres and in this case the goal was to underline their fleeting presence in contrast to the solid one of the building.

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IIT Campus sketch.

INTRODUCTION

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Source: Il vuoto. Riflessioni sullo spazio in architettura - Fernando Espuelas

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INTRODUCTION

KABUKI 歌舞伎

A lot of empty moments fill the exibition of the Kabuki theatre, a classical Japanese dance-drama.

It is well known for the stylization of its drama and aslo for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its artists.

In these performances the distance of time assumes unique symbology, it can be said that there is a lot of ma in this traditional theatre. It encloses different stylistic tendencies and, for this reason, is actually considered a complex genre. In fact, some claims that it can be entirely understood only through the whole history of Japanese theatre.

Many elements related to the ma concept belong to it, like accent, tension and rhythm, is than a diffucult process the explanation of their relation. Its characters are rooted in a stationary, agricultural and patriarchal society, very linked and close to the traditions of the past. Art connected to a production capacity takes part in the maintenance of that kind of tradition.

Kabuki was influenced during its origins by the kyogen, a previous form of theatre.

The relation between these two theatrical form is really notable still nowadays. That is because at the beginning they were almost considered the same thing.

This type of theatre is based on dialogue and conversation between common people belonging to a social class.

The concept of ma related to the kyogen is 32

a really simple question. In a regular structure in which words are pronounced with some emphasis, ma is created by voice intonation change, which modulates between different accents. Between them the ma that is created is always normal, maybe because the it is deeply linked to the daily actions of individual characters.

Kuroko instead indicates the stagehands who dress all in black during these shows.

They are part of the theatrical scene but considered invisible just like the ones in the sketch of the previous chapter, that indicates how their presence, compared to the building, turn out to be fleeting.

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Kabuki theatre

ジョカマチ・スパイラル・システム

Source: /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabuki

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MA 間

Approaching the ma concept is a useful practice whose prymary aim is to enter in the dynamics that rules Japanese aesthetics and spatiality. This character has many levels of meaning, it can be found in various fields ranging from art and music to behavior and everyday life, but it can also be a foundamental key to approach the concept of the perception and collocation of the Japanese aesthetics.

In a more general point of view, a word like this can be associated to other ones and its use could generate more than one meaning, just like a geometric figure to which new faces are continuously added. It is used, even in a pervasive way, in colloquial but also scientific expressions, with the meaning of interval, space, blank, emptiness, between, pause and distance. Conceived as a vacuum or opening it does not constitute a physical or physiological state that can be expressed through figures or words.

It is hard to find something similar or even corresponding in the Western culture.

Technically the word ma started to appear in some texts durign the central Kamakura period (1185 - 1333). Then, after four centuries of break, it appeared again from the middle of the Edo period untill the XVII century, when it officially consolidates as originally Japanese aesthetic consciousness.

Specifically, the very first time belongs to a book about gagaku, the court music, written in 1233 by Koma no Chikazane, a Nara 34

court musician, through the use of the term mabyoshi which means “a fast beat rhythm in four”. As a matter of fact It is a complex term often used in musical terminology in relation to the rhythm. In general it is used to indicate a two-stroke metric structure which is a regular rhythm. It refers only to a periodic rhythm, but is also the consciousness of the performance speed of a musical piece.

Nevertheless, still today, it can indicate a particuar way by which percussion instruments are attacked, a central impulse of a particular meter in instrumental music, or more, it can aslo be used with the meaning of progress, with a significance close to that of “time”.

The metro, hyoshi, is a good example to understand the ma concept, also because, in the music field, in all music genres, is more utilized than the ma. It is associated to the rhythm even if the significance is not the same.

Hyoshi seems to derive directly from the gesture of beating, or frome the conception of a precise point within the musical flow. Starting from this consideration, ma becomes the conscience of the length or of the distance that separates one point from another. It can aslo be said that ma and hyoshi theoretically have the same relation that occurs between the line and the point.

After a long period of pause, the term reappears, in the first half of the XVII century

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in the martial art texts written by Yagyu Tajima no Mori. In the last part of his strategy manual, called Heiho kadensho, it can be found an interesting expression which says “do not put a ma even a hair”.

This means that an imperceptible ma, between a sword shot and another, is that one in which there is not even space for a single hair. In other words, this also means that the intention suggested is that the shots follow uninterruptedly.

According to this practice, a delay that allows a vacuum, in comparison to the opponent’s ma, definitely leads to defeat.

The phrase mentioned before refers to a specific significance which goes beyond space and time, indicating a clue to follow in order to understand this typical cultural aesthetic thought.

A specific definition of this concept is not an immediate and easy task. It can be said that the aesthetic consciousness of ma is born with the perception of a distance, starting from a spatial or a temporal fracture.

This notion is typically attributable to Japanese culture because it does not consider an avarage aesthetic consciousness of the dynamics of an uninterrupted flow, but rather the perception of a peculiar laceration.

From this thought It can be added, if a definition needs to be given, that essentially, it is the representation of the beauty, that materializes with the structuring of a special condition of breakage. Moreover, It represents neither a time or space condition, but instead an aesthetic consciousness.

Considering the extremely complicated and even vague concept around the term ma and its significance, its use could be classified according to three main categories.

The first ambit is related to how it is utilized in daily life. The second is relative to sports activities, while the third is connected to the

world of arts, also in a more technical way, close to architectural range of meaning.

In the first group the approximation with terms related to the dwelling spaces is evident, mostly with the meaning of distance and space, but also of connection, in regard to relations between people, in daily life expressions, or traditional cultural uses, which occur in certain moments.

This massive presence of ma in the daily life may come from the rigid relation between upper and lower social class members, durign the Japanese feudal period. The spatial gap of ma was in line with its difference inside the human relations in the samurai life style. Thus, through this aspect, their behavior changes depending on the space in which they were operating. This fact underlining also the existence of a consciousness of the ma concept inside an entire society, consisting of a social class, constituted by members, samurai, farmers, craftsmen and merchants, belonging to a different ranking.

In this sense, Japanese society of that time, can be described as a society of machigai, that is a community of ma understood as a sense of difference.

Terms that represent this social gap, in accordance with the surrounding living space are majika, a contiguous contact among the samurai, while the so called madoku express the distance perceived from the lord in his wider space called hiroma.

Instead, nowadays the concept of ma is a criterion for measuring the enjoyment of personal relationships. It can be summarized with the expression “mashaku nu awanai” which literally means that the measure of ma is not right. Then if a good relationship is not established, it would be the case in which a lack of ma is present. This can be associated with the word manuke which means “without ma” or, as an adjective when referring to a person, being stupid or clumsy.

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Traditional Japan

MA

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Source: Le Japon du XIXe siècle : La redécouvert - Christine Shimizu

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On the contrary, if a good relationship is established a “good ma” was set. Moreover, the lack of it occurs also when time synchronization is wrong. For instance, during the typical Japanese way of greeting, the gesture of bowing, or even more when someone is late or early. Be on time which means “adjust the ma” is called maniau.

Interpersonal behavior assumes a rilevant importance in Japanese culture, which is also evidenced in the home terminology with a symbolic significance. The ma of kyakuma, the guest room, is the place of the relationship between one person and another, unlike that one of ima, the living room, which indicates a simple “stay”.

Tokonoma contains instead a ma related to a sacred place. It is a unique, separated and isolated space that can be found only in the Japanese home. A mere spatial interior distance and its consequent function is instead represented by the following terms.

Madori expresses care in the way the interior space is used and furnished, chanoma is the dinette, while kyakuma and osetsuma indicate both the reception room.

The second use of ma, that one in the martial arts, in the sport and, in general, in the world of competition activities, is almost similar to the previous one. During the teaching of the ancient kendo the knowledge of ma is imparted from different points of view. In the tactics manuals it is explained a main rule to follow, that is to never respond to the rhythm of the opponent.

In other terms it means to escape from the ma of the adversary. In fact, it is recommended to eliminated his rhythm surprising him.

In the Book of five rings by Musashi Miyamoto, that was an expert Japanese swordsman, it is highlighted the fact of understanding the ma of the rhythm. Furthermore it is suggested, in order to achieve a victory, to subtract the ma or the pace of the oppo38

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nent. This theorical concepts and conflicts can be well represented, in moden sport, by baseball, in particular between the pitcher and the beater.

Their relation on field is exactly opposite to that of ma in the daily life, in which the main purpose is to adapt your own ma and keep it in harmony to the other one. In fact, the true ability of the beater is in his timing to disturb the ma of the pitcher. The signal from the cachter serves precisely to this reason.

In every sport, not only in baseball, the aim in order to achieve a success is then the same, create a different structure of ma in comparison to the opponent, to destabilize his rhythm, in other words, denying the normality of everyday life’s ma.

The third use of ma, that one related to art is becoming an expression of astonishment to a higher degree than in the field of sport activities or in the one of everyday life that were explained before. The excess is linked to the yojo term which literally means “surplus of feeling” and can be found in Japanese arts, in the kabuki, in the no theater music and also in the traditional music. It is aslo related to the expression of Japanese doctrine of insufficiency, imperfection and incompleteness.

The famous Japanese aesthetician, actor, and playwrigh Zeami claimed, for example in the idea of no, that in the moment when the dance or singing ceases, the tension is still maintained on a high level and the attention keeps intact. That sort of pause in dance, singing and text, called himahima, represents moments of artistic ma. Then according to this principle finished and full things tend to vulgarity, while scarcity is to be considered noble and exceptional.

The architecture of the tea room is closely connected with this theoretical idea. The appreciation of missing things, in which the order is not a primary desire and the asymmetrical parts are perceived by those who

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look at them are comparable to a ma of an artistic space.

The theory of incompleteness and lack are concepts that can be found as well in religious fields especially in zen, in which the path to enlightenment is a speechless process, which totaly avoids verbal expression, but in which works the religious consciousness of the ma.

A really similar kind of principle related to frugality belongs to the sensibility of space in the design of the Japanese house, matured within a millennial culture. A truthful example can be that of the tokonoma. A big unused space located inside a small room, opens symbolically a gate towards the infinite. Indeed, a no used space introduces a dimension that has no limit, a typical and unique feature of the Japanese habitation.

Thus, in the design of living spaces, ma is always present and should never be forgotten.

In Japan the way of built is just opposite copared to the one in Western culture. Firstly the pillars bearing the main structure are posed, then, immediately afterwards, the roof is laid, in order to proceed in the realization of what stands under it. The space between column and column, which defines the span of the building, is called ma and the structure, madori, literally means “utilize ma”.

relation to western units. In fact, ken size became increasingly shorter. The space between columns which was one ken decreases to seven shaku and then to six shaku and six sun, measure found in many ancient contructions. In the Tenpyo period (729 - 749) one ken was equivalent to ten shaku, while during the XII century it seems reduced to seven and in the XV century gradually to six shaku and five sun.

The size of the rooms is measured in tatami which in Muromachi period (1333 - 1576) was called kyoma which means “ma of Kyoto”.

Another word related to the ma concept and in the measurement of the Japanese house is represented by engawa. If the ma is the distance between column and column, engawa, literally “edge to side”, is the space between interior and exterior.

The term mado, translated as window, indicates an opening already planned in the structure. It has nothing to do with the western notion of drilling a masonry but it may serve as an entrance door, a further access to the house, through the engawa. It refers to the narrow corridors along the rooms accessed by opening the sliding doors, all placed on the same side because on the other engawa faces the garden.

With a different pronunciation of the same typeface, which sounds ken, the quantitative measure of living space is defined. A ken is the equivalent of almost six shaku. This last unit represents the decimal unit imported from China, through the first massive adoption arrived from the continent.

Often called just en, it connects the interior with the exterior part, replacing the walls. It is thus difficult to decide if engawa belongs to the interior or the exterior of the dwelling, but it has surely marked the facede and the way of living the house, creating a confortable situation between the interior space and the exterior ambient.

Currently shaku is called kanezashi and corrisponds to 10/33 of a meter. This measure, over the centuries suffered small changes, maybe due to the sample material constriction or because of its adaptation in

The analysis of this foundamental notion, deeply inlaid in the Japanese background, can take place also, in one hand, through its lexical use, as a single term, and in the other hand ,over its figurative structure 39

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which otlines also its graphic architectural origins.

Its first meaning, when it is used in autonomy, as mentioned earlier, is the preposition “between” that is in some kind resumed also in the figurative expression.

Observing deeper the typographical font of the element, it can be noticed that is composed by two distinguishable components.

A sort of a portal in the external part and a square shape in the middle, enclosed among it.

The external gateway is, in turn, formed by two sosrt of flags that taken a part, without the central element, indicate the charactermon (門), which means as a matter of fact just “door”.

It can be observed that these ideograms refer to a traditional chinese village door, or even to a more symbolic and archaic configuration, such as the traditional entrance gate in a Shinto shrine. The so called torii, a real passage between the inside and outside of a sacred area. In any case there is a clear pictographic recall to a fixed architectural element that marks the border between the outside and the inside of a domestic or even an urban area.

A significative example that contains the word mon and that also underlines the same kind of meaning is Rasho-mon. It indicates the gate built in the ancient Japanese city of Kyoto. In fact Rasho refers to city walls and the entire word taken as a whole signifies “the main city gate”. Through this example is evidenced the clear connection that even just this term has with the dwelling function from a residential living space to an urban one.

In the centre of this figurative gate is placed another basic Japaense ideogram, that is nichi or hi (日), that means day or, like some older sources claims, sun.

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In contrast to the previous element, this other figurative element, located exactly at the centre of the portal, is not fixed but related to time measurement.

Therefore ma, taken as a whole and in its full meaning, does not indicate “something” but rather a moment in the middle of a time, a space among two things or even a relation between two people. Also through this graphical analysis the conclusion is almost the same, it represents in fact a sort of a measurement sensitivity, both in spatial and temporal circumstances.

All these evocative, pictographic and simbolic values can be found when it is used as an elementar single element, pronounced as aida, with its pure propositional function.

Besides, in its seccond lexical use, assumed only in composition with other terms, in which the pronunciation is exactly ma and the meaning is “room”, the qualities mentioned earlier are even more strengthened, assuming moreover a spatial and an architectural significance.

This second meaning, just like the first one, can be observed also in the figurative expression of the word. In fact, in this case, its typeface may be associated to the entrace hall of the room that belongs to the door mentioned before in which the sun is framed.

The first theorical meaning and the second more tangible one may be related to the same evocative picture, of the same ambience, like a sort of getaway between the interior and the exterior of the same house.

This image is helpful to approach the third and the last etymological meaning, always in composition with others, that refers to the explicit meaning of interval, always in reference to time and space sense, which is called kan.

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A unique fusion between spatial and temporal sensivity, typical in Japanese culture and far from the categories of Western thought, in addition to being witnessed by the three different uses of ma already mentioned, can be summarized through another word that is ji-kan (時間), which means “time”.

Analyzing and dividing also this last word, it can be noticed that the first part composed by the ideogram ji (時), that taken in consideration alone, means “hour”. Dividing further this part, the first character on the left, is always the nichi/hi (間) component with the temporal meaning of “sun” or “day” analyzed before. Instead the second part of the term reveals its architectural and spatial aspect (寺) that is “temple” pronounced tera.

In this comprasion among the termporal and the spatial component is still evidenced the ancient and universal relation between the temple building and the movement of the sun.

This relation can be also surprisingly found in the word templum. Its original meaning was in fact “area of celestial observation”.

Also other words can help in this kind of lexical inquiry, with the aim of confirming the concept related to time, space and thus interval.

In the abstract word kukan (空間), which means space, appears again with the sense of interval (kan), unlike before with a spatial acceptation instead of a temporal one.

or interval sky, which indicates that the interpretation of the space is a portion, a part, or again a region of the heavenly field.

A further proof can be found in the word section, kukan (区間) understood as the interval of a larger space. The first part, ku, is present in the Japanese addresses and indicates a portion of urban space rather extende, equivalent to a district or circumscription. Individually it means “part”. The kan that follows which always means interval reinforce this concept of a space positionated between two limits. The definition of ma, according to the Iwanami kogo jiten, the ancient language dictionary, is “the interval that necessarily exists (tozen) between two things that follow each other (renzoku): hence the foundamental idea of pause.”

Also here the terms related to a temporary aspect instead of those spatial ones are distinguishable.

It is therefore possible to retrace in the ma term, and in the previous words that contain it, an an indissoluble interlacement of the space and time notions. This is a conception that does not have a similar correspondence in the Western culture that rather tends to dissociate time from space.

It is also worth pointing out that these thoughts and notions are also present in other cultures, but the force of conservation of certain archaic characters, even in the society of the most advanced modernization in terms of aesthetic culture, traditional elements in the living or building theme is unmatched by others.

The first part of the word, used alone, designates the notion of sky, pronounced sora.

It is evocative to underline that the first element (空) has also a meaning of void as confirmation of the fact that space, in its more abstract significance, is perceived as an undetermined blank, then inexistent.

The effective translation of the word composed by this two last terms might be section 41

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SHINTO SHRINE 神社

Ise--Jingu, a large group of Shinto shrines, dedicated to the ancestors of the imperial dynasty, located on the eastern side of the Kii peninsula, to the southeast of the ancient centres of government in the Yamato basin, more precisely in the city of Ise, in Mie Prefecture of Japan, represents nowadays the only trace of traditional urbanization before the Chinese influence.

panese mythology, the Emperors of Japan are considered to be direct descendants of Amaterasu.

This sort of imposition, that came from the continent, which changed and marks radically the urban morphology of the entire country, brings, as a consequence, the adoption of the urban planar orthogonal system called jobosei, characterized by a series of streets running at right angles and dividing wards and discricts, just like a vast chess-board.

These two major shrines are about 6 kilometres distant from each other and are related through many other smaller Shinto shrines in the surrounding area and across Ise City.

They are also joined, through the old entertainment district of Furuichi, by a pilgrimage road.

Naiku and Geku are two of the main shrines that are located in the middle of a millenarian forest, in a very remote awe-inspiring natural setting, not too distant from the Ise center.

The first one, officially known as Kotai Jingu, that literally means “inner sanctuary”, situated further south from the central Ise, in the town of Uji-tachi, is dedicated to the worship of the major deity of the Shinto religion, Amaterasu Omikami, where it was believed she dwelt. She is seen as the goddess of the sun, but also of the universe. According to the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, two of the most important and oldest chronicles in Ja42

The second one, officially known as “Toyouke Daijingu”, that means “outer sanctuary” is instead devoted to Toyouke-Omikami, the godess of agricolture, rice harvest and industry.

There are a total number of 123 shrines in this area, 91 are connected to Naiku and the other 32 to Geku.

In this case a blend between space and time can be found in a unique constructive design consisting by a cyclic relation.

Because of the Shinto belief, according to which the death, even the one of the sovereign, contaminate the site, and then involving Japanese capitals to assume a temporary trait, these temples are still the only most significant and precius remains of the earliest Japanese anthropological cosmos.

Indeed, according to the tradition of Shikinen Sengu-sai, from which this ritual takes its name, every twenty years, starting from their first construction, they are periodically

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Main shrine building

Source: Architettura Giapponese - Teiji Itoh

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Source: Architecture and authority in Japan.

Isee shrine. Side and front elevation of the Shoden

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destroyed and faithfully rebuilt from scratch.

A new sacred palace with the same dimensions as the current one is built in an alternate site, but adjacent to the main sanctuary.

The ceremonie begins with the ritual of cutting the first trees for the new divine palace situated inside the jinja, or the yashiro, two of the many words that changed over time indicating a shinto shrine, particularly in these both cases used in a more general sense.

Until the Meji period, dated 1868 -- 1912 AD, the vast majority of shrines were very small and had no permanent priest, the term jinja, one of the most popular nowadays, was in fact rare. Since then shrine terminology has undergone substantial changes and today the term “Shinto shrine”, in contrast to the “Buddist temple”, used in order to separate Shinto from Buddist religious structures, translates several but non equivalent Japanese words.

Moreover, concerning shrine’s nomenclature, It can be observed, even though there is a lot of variation in their composition in relation to their meaning and as well because of their descriptive mark, that it is effectively credible to identify in them two parts. The meisho and the shogo.

The first one refers to the shrine’s name, most commonly is the location where the shrine is situated. For instance in the case of Ise-Jingu, the first word makes reference to the coastal city of Ise. In many other cases the meisho could be even the name of the kami, which is, considering also that it has a vast variety of uses, the Japanese word for “diety”, in its most general meaning. For example, an Inari Shrine is a shrine didicated to the god Inari.

The second one indicates the condition of the shrine including consequently other types of information, related in some cases to the importance, the size or as well, refer-

ring to some era or period of time. Sometimes this word is just defined as “title”.

In addition to jinja and yashiro that, as mentioned before, are used with a generic significance, some others widespread terms are listed below.

Mori suggests and reflects the natural origin of the first shirnes that were simply forest, groves, or even just places, where the presence of the kami could be found.

Hokora, which evolved from hokura, that means “kami repository”, gives even more information about their origin. Indeed it is a miniature shrine found near a bigger one on a street side along for example country roards. It is believed that it was the first Japanese term used to indicate a shrine. This is even more supportive of the evidence that initially shrines were huts constructed to house a yorishiro, or namely, according to shinto belief, an object capable to attract presence of spirits in nature.

Jingu is a shrine of particular importance due to the fact that it has a deep relationship with the Imperial household, just like the case of the Ise--Jingu.

Miya refers to a shrine that has a special kami or enshrines a member of the Imperial household such as the Empress.

The suffix -sha or -ja indicates a smaller shrine that has received a kami from another more important.

-gu often denotes a shrine enshrining an imperial prince but there are many cases in which is used simply in a traditional context.

Continuing instead to dealing with the traditional riconstruction ritual essay, also the sacred apparel, furnishings and divine treasures that are going to be placed inside the new construction are remade. Only once they are finished, the Yata no Kagami, or the holy mirror that is a symbol of Amaterasu and represents wisdom or honesty, which also literally means “The Eight Hand Mirror,” in reference to its octagonal shape, is moved by the Jingu priests inside the new building. This procedure demands about 45

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46

Source: Architettura Giapponese - Teiji Itoh

SHINTO SHRINE

Wooden torii

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thirty ceremonies and rituals and it takes about eight years to conduct all of them.

The first one was conducted in 690, during the era of the 41st monarch Jito, whereas the latest in 2013 and was the sixty-second.

In this manner, ancient styles have been manteined and replicated over the centuries to the present day. Another reason wherefore shrines of this type are mostly of recent construction is related to a fragility motif.

In fact, in contrast to the Wester world, traditional Japanese technique does not oppose against the action of the natural elements.

On the contrary, It is always researched an harmonious relationship with nature, starting from the not simple issue of positioning cleanly the temple in the middle of the forest, thus enshrining the alliance between man and the surrounding environment.

se culture is perfectly identified in the Ise shrines “...more so than any other thing in Japan.”

His thought is supported because of the very extremely simple and logical constructive structure, considering also that every member seems to belong more with architecture than engineering, just as it should not follow any static criterion.

Taut, fascinated by Japanese traditional architecture heritage and culture, had a crucial role for the exposure of this foundamentals values in the West.

However in both cases a pure architectural form has been created, “Everything in Ise is artistic, nothing is artificial”.

In this forms, proportions and profiles, given under very different climatic conditions if compared to the Greek model, he recognized extremely modern and relevant spiritual architectural principles.

Shinmei-zukuri stands for a typical style used to built and rebuilt Shinto shrines, the most common in Mie Prefecture. This architectural style, antecedent the Chinese influence, is characterized by extreme simplicity and antiquity.

Its basic principales are dated back to distant time, more precisely to the Kofun Period (250–538 C.E.), before the Asuka

The thought that the Ise Shrine seems to be a specifically Japanese thing to the German architect is even more strengthened when considering their perpetual reconstruction.

All ornaments, contraddicting pure architecture are banished with the smell of age and all non-architectural accessories, being always new and embracing even more the

period (538–710 C.E.) that belongs to the Ancient period called Kodai.

rules and the main characteristic of the typica Japanese architecture.

Bruno Taut likened the importance of Ise Shrine’s honden such as an eastern equivalent of the Greece’s Parthenon.

In fact, as with the Acropolis, the site is very much older than the building itself and consequently it assumes a fundamental importance related by, especially in the Japanese case, its values of simplicity and purity.

This can be noticed in the sacred use, particularly intrinsic to garden design, of rectangles made of gravel in which this types of buildings are placed.

Accordinig to the well-known modernist German architect, who lived in Japan for a couple of years, the aboriginal Japane-

“An idealized conception of cleanliness, clarity, simplicity, cheerfulness and faithfulness to the materials of nature, and for the greater part they still retain that conception.”

The heart of the shrine complex, the honden, also called shinden, or sometimes shoden, is the most important and sacred building in the Shinto shrine culture.

Its structure is made of plain-unfinished wood, is either 3x2 or 1x1ken in size. In the case of the last dimension, the interior is a square divided into four identical sections, each one covered by 15 tatami.

It usually raised above the rest thanks to a 47

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lifted floor and also because of a characteristic gabled roof. It has a particular kind of configuration due to the typical purely ornamental logs. Positioned vertically and horizontally, parallel to each other and protruding from the roof’s ridge. Its unique architectural shape is however observable, but in any case closed to the general public access. Whereas its grounds are sacred, they are commonly protected by a surrounding fence called tamagaki, made of various material like wood, stone and, in recent years, concrete.

By the honden’s structure composition derives the shrine’s architectural style. Besides the holiest Ise Grand Shrine honden’s style, Shinmei-zikuri, there are farther Sumiyoshi-zukuri and Taisha-zukuri styles. This last one, in particular, is the oldest extant style and it takes its name from the Izumo Taisha’s honden, located in Izumo, Shimane Prefecture.

All these three orders are exemplified respectively by the honden of Izumo Taisha, Sumiyoshi Taisha and Nishina Shinmei Shrine, from which therefore derive also the name of the corresponding architectural style. Furthermore they assume a crucial architectural and historical significance because they were conceived before the arrival of Buddhism in Japan, which caused a clear break in Japanese urban history deveopement, reflected also in some of the compositive elements, and even in some new architecture’s vocabulary terms belonging to Shinto’s design.

Nevertheless the easiest way to recognize a Shinto shrine is through its entrances called Torii, which is a traditional Japanese gate and symbolically marks the transition from the profane to the sacred, It literally means bird abode.

Besides, the architectural characteristics, in terms of composition and detail, hence from 48

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the roof to the floor, are quite often similar in all of the hondens. Elements such as cypress bark-covered gabled ceiling, with forked roof finials, called chigi, in addition to short decorative logs, called katsuogi, plank walls hatched with reed or covered with hinoki cypress bark, plus archaic features like gable-end pillars and a single central pillar, or even the external stairway, covered by a bark-covered roof, recure in all these types of sacred structures.

Differences may concern purposes, Ise Grand Shrine was constructed according to the style of storehouse, while Izumo Taisha in the style of dwellings. This dissimilarity is possibly explained by the reason that some early shrines were built without a space finalized to worship.

In general, a frontal space, called gejin, where a single entrance is placed, and a back one, called naijin, divide the simple interior structure of an honden. Interior walls are painted in white while supporting pillars in vermilion, giving a brightly colored ambience.

The center of this small room is occupied by the shintai, or goshintai, that is the “sacred body of the kami” that, in addition to being the Japanese word for a god, delineate also other meanings such as deity, divinity or spirit. In fact, in some circumstances kami are identified as true divinities, in the same way as the gods of ancient Greece or Rome. The most common goshintai are man-made objects like mirrors, swords, jewels and sculptures of kami called shinzo.

Shinto theologians specify that sometimes this type of translation could result a serious misunderstanding. In some cases, they can be associated to natural objects such as stones, mountains, trees and waterfall, but here, translating kami with “god” or “divinities” could be an incorrect interpretation.

When the bond to a kami is more rela-

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ted and direct to, for example a sacred mountain, or a nearby himorogi, an altar or sacred space with green bamboo at the corners, often square in shape, used to worship, or a yorishiro, a physical object, in general a giant tree, capable of attracting spirits that evoke kami, the honden edifice is completely absent, or otherwise considered to be unnecessary.

Originally, These sacred places and their yorishiro gradually evolved into today’s shrines, whose origins can be still seen in the Japanese words for “mountain” and “forest”, which can also mean actually “shrine”. Many of them, in fact, derived and have expanded around a big tree.

During the Yayoj period, traditionally dated 300 BCE–300 CE, places nearby mountains peak were the most common shintai at that time, because of the precense of water supplies to the plains were people lived. In fact, primitive shrines were just temporary structures, when the need arose to attract kami to guarantee good harvests, simultaneously with the born of agricolture.

Right in this manner, simply marking these places with surrounding fences and entrance gates, these temples were born.

Another indication in this regard is realted to the first word used to signify shrine. Hokura or hokora, literally meaning “kami repository”, seems to point that the first shrines were signify built in order to accommodate some yorishiro.

Proceeding instead with the compositional analysis, a shrine, taken as a whole complex may include within its grounds other several structures, each one destined to a different and specific aim.

Over the honden, which is the most important element that contains the kami and occasionally can be devoted to more then one of them, It can be found, as first visual impact, the Torii.

It is literally translated as “getaway” and one of its many functions, aside from indicate the entance, is also to symbolically delimit the transition from the profane to the sacred.

It can be seen also in front of the tombs of each Emperor because of the strong relationship between Shinto shrines and the Japanese Imperial family. But it can aslo be found in a non-sacred place as a free-standing symbol. Their number can change in relation to the level of holiness of the shrine.

In fact, more than one Torii could be seen during the entrance but also in the core of a shrine near the honden, thus increasing its importance.

Their first appearance In Japanese territory is dated to the Heian period, running from 794 to 1185 AD. Even though these entrance gates are deeply linked in the Japanese culture history, their origin still remains an open debate today.

Several different theories related to this subject have not yet found a definitive answer because of the widespread symbolic use of this sign in the entire Asian continent.

Very similar structures can be found also in India, Thailand, China and Korea and for this reason, according to historians, It could be an imported tradition. The relation between these countries, but especially the intense period of interaction among the Japanese archipelago and the continent, which began in 500 BC and ended in 500 AD, has led to an intense cultural exchange through the Yellow Sea. This would explain the presence of torii at the entrance of Buddist temples, or at least suppose they arrival, if not before, with the Buddism influence.

Other theories claim, through a similar terminology connection, that the origin is related to the word torana, which indicates a type of gates seen in central India, more precisely in the monastery of Sanchi.

The hypothesis is supported, over the etimo49

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logical similarity, also due to some structure affinity between the two gates, even if it is not yet a definitive proof.

Another analogy in terms of shape could be, for example, a religious structure called Sao Ching Cha, translated as “The Giant Swing” located in Bangkok, Thailand. The same discourse can be attributed also for Chinese and Korean traditional gateaway architecture. In a similar way, a Painfang, also known as pailou, represents the Chinese model from which the torii, always according to some hypotheses, have originated. Alike the Hongsalmun that is the Korean sacred portal related through form and function to the other ornamental and religious entry elements listed before.

Another supposition, not related to any structural comparison or form similarity, but linked directly to the meaning of the term and thus to a widespread tradition in this area, is represented by the use of the “bird perch”, that afterwards would evolved somehow into today’s traditional gates. This may explain the enigmatic literally translation in “bird adobe” of the word torii. Korean sotdae, similar in function and form to other cultures, like Chinese and Mongolian, are poles which supported one or more wooden birds on their top.

The figure of the bird, in several Asian cultures, is believed to have magic or spiritual proprieties which ward off bad spirits and bring good luck to the village.

Instead, in Japan, bird motifs have a strong connection with the dead, in relation to some prehistorical funeral rite that have been found in several archeological sites, from the Yayoy and the Kofun period. This is the main reason why, in spite of their name meaning, no visible trace of birds could be found on today’s torii. In effect, according to a Shinto belief elements of death brings kegare which is a Japanese term that indicates a state of uncleanness and defilement, which still has a remarkable consideration within today’s society.

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Traditionally, wood or stone were the materials used to built this type of gates. Nowadays they can also be made of reinforced concrete, copper or stainless steel.

The oldest stone Torii, that was built in the 12th century, belongs to Hachiman Shrine, in Yamagata prefecture, while the oldest wooden one was constructed in 1535, belongs to Kubo Hachiman Shrine, in Yamanashi prefecture.

They are usually either unpainted or painted. When they are colored the most diffused dye is the vermilion, most well known in typical shinto sacred space and culture. In combination with this brilliant red pigment, black color is used in the upper lintel called kasagi and in the decorative sleeve at the bottom of the pillars called nemaki. Very rarely torii could be found in other colors, such as the white and red one in the Kamakura-gu shrine, placed in the city of Kamakura, in Kanagawa Prefecture.

The composition of these gates are very simple with a few onrnamental elements even if not always present. Basically they are constituted of two vertical elements which support other two horizontal beams, all connected by structural or also purely ornamental components.

The simplest example is the shime torii, probably one of the oldest type, made of just two posts and a sacred cord, called shimenawa, tied between them.

A part from the shime torii, all the others can be grouped in to two families, in relation to the presence of only straight elements or both straight and curved parts.

The first group belongs to the so-called shinmei family. The second one to the myojin one. The shinmei torii, that gives the name to the family, consists of two pillars called hashira, only one lintel called kasagi, linked together by a beam called nuki.

All the subgroups of this family are characte-

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rized by linear upper lintels.

They are Ise torii, Kasuga torii, Hachiman torii, Kashima torii, Kuroki torii, Shiromaruta torii and Mihashira torii. Their denomination come from the shrine’s name from which they refer.

the rear, the name changes in ura-sando, which means rear sando. Finnaly sometimes it could be found a waki-sando which indicates that the entrance, in this particular case, is located to the side of the whole complex.

This footpath represents as well a kind of visual and spiritual journey, involving in some cases also a bridge across water like a further step of purification, in order to prepare visitors for worshiop.

The item do, as a matter of fact, denotes, in addition to the road, and in a more symbolic way, the path of one’s life.

In the second one, It could be noticed the precence of reinforcing elements such as the shimaki or shimagi which is a second horizontal lintel that stands underneath the kasagi. Both these horizontal and top elements may have an upward curvature called sorimashi.

The nuki, which stands under them is as well an horizontal beam often hold up by wedges called kusabi, in large part purely ornamental.

Gakuzuka is a supporting strut positioned at the center of the nuki, usually covered by a plate on which is written the name of the shrine.

The pillars are traited in two different ways.

They could often rest on a white ring made of stone called kamebara or daiishi, or on a decorative black sleeve called nemaki. On the top of the pillars may be found a decorative ring called daiwa.

As before, the subgroups of this family are characterized by a common feature that is

Chozuya or temizuya is a water ablutin pavillion located on the path to the main sanctuary. It is an open area where are placed one or more stone basins full of clear water.

Wooden ladles are provided and available to worshippers, in order to rinse their left hands, right hands, mouth and finally the handle of the water dippers. This symbolic purification cerimony, called temizu, is normal before worship to purify visitors before enter into the honden. In Shinto the concept of purification is foundamental.

Originally this procedure was done at a fountainhead, brook or seashore and it is still considered nowadays the ideal manner.

the presence of curved lintels. They are Nakayama torii, Daiwa--Inari torii, Sanno torii, Miwa torii, Ryobu torii and Hizen torii.

In fact, thise traditional way of ablution is still used by worshippers at the Inner Shrine of Ise.

The configuration of a Shinto shrine is extremely variable and none of its eventual elements are necessarily present, as a matter of fact in some cases even the honden can be missing, just like the Suwa taisha shrine, in Nagano prefecture.

Komainu, translated into lion-dogs are statues that resemble lion creatures. Jinnai komainu is the oldest type, located only inside a shinto. The other type is called sando komainu but and is visible outside. They have been used outdoors only since the 14th century. Starting from the Edo period other type of animals have been used instead of lion which have probaby chinese origin, in particulary from Tang dynasty tradition. The other most frequent variants are dogs, wild boars tigers, dragons and foxes. Specially this last is used like guardian of shrines dedicated to kami Inari.

Other significant and recurrent elements are listed below. Sando indicates the road approaching the shrine. It is also the main entrance path that begins usually along with the Shinto torii, in this case is called omote-sando which means front sando. If it is a secondary entrance, such as for example to

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52

Source: Le Japon du XIXe siècle : La redécouvert - Christine Shimizu

SHINTO SHRINE

Izumo Shinto shrine composition

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The haiden, generally placed in front of the main sanctuary, or the honden, and often bigger in terms of dimensions, is the hall of worship. It provides a place to allow ceremonies and for worshiping the kami. It can become the most important building in the entire shrine when the honden is missing, such as for example in the case of the Omiwa Shrine, in Nara.

The heiden, or sometimes chuden, represents a sort of connecting section between the honden and the haiden. It is located within a Shinto shrine and was used like a offertory hall even if nowadays its use is dedicated the most for rituals.

Toro is a traditional lantern diffused in Japan durign the Heian period. Before that period of time its use was diffuse only in Buddhist temples, in order to illuminated paths. Then even private home started its use.

Stone, wood, or metal were the materials most used.

Kagura-den is a building located within the Shinto shrine which hosts sacred dance, called kagura, music and cerimonies offered to the kami. Originally it was just a temporary structure first mentioned in a 9th-century text. In about a century it becomes a permanet stage of the shrine.

Shamusho is the administrative office that oversees the shrine. Often It incorporates residential areas and meeting rooms where priest may retire for purification rites or other cerimonies.

This office was introduced inside the shinto structure after the Meji period. Indeed, with the abolition of hereditary shrine families and implementation of national shrine administration, having places for the execution of shrine business that were clearly separated from the private homes, became necessary.

Ema are small wooden plates on which are written prayers or whishes by Shinto

worshippers. Various animals pictures are riproduced or some other Shinto imagery.

In ancient times people donated horses for good favors, over time this practice changed into a wooden plaque with a picture of a horse. In effect, etymologically the term ema in Japanese means “horse-picture”.

Sessha and massha, collectively known as setsumatsusha, are small or even miniature shrines entrusted to the custody of a larger one through a deep connection with the kami. Even though the two terms today are used like synonyms, in the past they had different meaning. The firsr one could be translated as auxiliary shrine. The second one as undershrine. This distinction, used during the Heian period, was based on whether a shrine belonged to one book list or another. When the shakaku shrine ranking system was abolished in 1946, legally the distinction disappeared, but both terms remained in use out of consuetude.

The first setsumatsusha usually had some deep connection with the history of the surrounding area or the family of the enshrined kami.They are usually 1x1 ken in size.

A tamagaki is a fence that surrounds a Japanese Shinto shrine, a sacred area or an imperial palace. Originally it was just a barrier of trees, then other materials such as wood, stone and concrete.

The number of Shinto shrines in Japan is estimated to be around 100,000. This number may, or may not, include private shrines in homes and owned by small groups, abandoned or derelict shrines, roadside hokura.

Shinto shrine’s architecture, appropriated from the form of vernacular storehouses and granaries, by praising the gods of creation and the harvest, was to becomea durable tradition in Japanese civilization, as widesperad in physical form and deep cultural meaning just as much in classical architecture in the Mediterranean world.

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54

Ise Sanctuary. Aerial view of the Shoden and of the Hoden.

SHINTO SHRINE

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Source: Architettura Giapponese - Teiji Itoh

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CHINESE GRID 中国のグリッド

The concept of permanent shrine was introduced by the arrival of Buddism in Japan, which has had also a crucial influence in the developement of Japanese society, especially from what concerns urban planimetry system but also for what kind of aspects the culture assumed until today.

Even though Chinese sources place the first propagation of their religion during the Kofun period, 250–538 C.E., according to the Nihon Shoki, the second oldest book of classical Japanese history, sometimes translated as The Chronicles of Japan, its official introduction is dated to 552 AD. From this point onwards, there was a large diffusion of a great number of jingu-ji, a mixed places of worship composed of a Buddhist temple and of a shrine dedicated to a local kami. They represented a sort of compromise in order to encountered some resistence that came from the pre-existing beliefs and religious institutions.

These complexes were born when a temple was erected next to a shrine in what would later be called shinbutsu shugo that literally means “syncretism of kami and Buddhas”.

Beyond all, Shinto shrines manifested a certain resistance to architectural change. This sort of tendency manifested itself in the tradition of rebuilding shrines faithfully at regular intervals adhering strictly to their original design called Shikinen sengu-sai. This tradition is present also in other religions, but 56

in Shinto it has played a particularly significant role in preserving ancient architectural styles.

Nevertheless they weren’t totally immune to change and for this the Buddism advent has added several new words to Shinto architecture’s vocabulary. Romon, haiden, kairo, toro and komainu are all elements borrowed from the Buddist religion.

The first shrine-temple ever built was very probably the Usa Hachiman-gu, in the city of Usa in Oita prefecture. Here, a temple called Miroku-ji was completed and associate the existing parts in 779. However, the earliest clearly documented case is that of a man who, in 749 in Kashima, Ibaraki prefecture, built a temple adjacent to a shrine.

Another evidence of this changeover is embedded in the word Miya. Meaning “palace”, this term came into use some time during their evolution, indicating that shrines had by then become the imposing structures of today.

Fujiwara-kyo, located in Yamato Province, in today’s Nara Prefecture, was, from 694 to 710, the imperial capital of Japan and the first one built according to a grid pattern imported directly from the Chinese urban model. This can be seen through the regular grid, formed by nine orthogonal road axes, which characterizes it, with the typical dai-

ジョカマチ・スパイラル・システム

Fujiwarakyo planimetry

Source: /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujiwara-kyo

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Source: /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heijankyo/media/File:Heijokyo.jpg

CHINESE GRID

Heijokyo (Nara) planimetry

中国のグリッド

Chang’an planimetry

ジョカマチ・スパイラル・システム

Source: Storia della città orientale - Leonardo Benevolo

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Heiankyo (Kyoto) plan

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中国のグリッド

ジョカマチ・スパイラル・システム

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heian-kyo

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gokuden, or the imperial palace placed in the centre. Even the second capital, the first “fixed” in Japanese history , Heijokyo, renamed later in Nara, is a urban transposition of the ancient Chinese capital Chang’an.

All this geometry pattern is due, a part from urban rationality rules, to religious and ritual aspects that belong to ancient Chinese tradition. This is the main reason of the squared form of the city as an image of the world which reflects in turn the universe.

The emperor resides in the centre of the city where ideally passes the vertical axis of conjunction between heaven and earth.

This conception is one of the cornerstons of the Chinese thought that is the so called T’ien-Ti-Ren, or rather known as the Great Triad.

The research of this armony between the human life and the universe, symbolized also in many figures contained in the I-Ching, known also as Book of Changes, an ancient Chinese divination text, such as the three yin and yan lines, is at the basis principles that rules the construction of houses and cities according to precise orientations.

As an example, the main axis is the north- south direction and consequently all the facades of the principal monumental buildings, the main entrances and even the look of the emperor during the cerimonies are oriented towards the south.

Under this theorical concepts, the result, translated in urban planning terms is a square city of nine miles per side with three entrances for each side and nine total streets that link all the entrances. In the inside, at the centre, is located the imperial palace, on the east side the temple of ancestors, the one of the earth and god on the west side.

Everything is designed according to cosmic ispiration dominated by the number three and its multiple nine, with twelve doors that 62

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correspond to the months of the year.

Inside the imperial palace, at the center, is collocated the Ming-Tang, “The light pavilion”. In it all the symbological element linked to the Great Triad are summarized.

Furthermore, its square plant is divided in others nine square rooms, recalling the partition in also nine provinces of the entire Chinese empire.

The form of the plant of the Ming-Tang, the one of the imperial palace and the city described in the Chou-li, remained through time the major a point of urban referece for the ideal models of capital and administrative centres in the whole Chinese history.

It must be pointed out, however, that the literary model has some differences, compared to the archeological fonts The next Chang’an of the Tang, which is without a doubt the biggest city in the preindustrial era, if on one hand presented a regular grid, perfectly inscribed in a square, on the other hand the location of the imperial palace was collocated on the north side, at the bottom of the city compared to the main road axis. In any case, more than will represent the undisputed model of the far East, it will be perfectly duplicated over time and is visible still today in the historical Japanese capital.

Another foundamental role in the development of the Japanese urbanism, that in some way determined a turnig point for what concerned the evolution of the urban spatiality, can be attribuited to the coastal city of Kamakura, in Kanagawa Prefecture, about 50 kilometres south-west from Tokyo.

Although today is a small city, with just around 200.000 inhabitants, it is considered, as described in many historical books, the city symbol of the Japanese Middel Ages. It was also the capital of the country, specifically from the 1192, as the seat of the firts Shogunate during the Kamakura pe-

中国のグリッド

ジョカマチ・スパイラル・システム

riod (1185 -1333). The configuration of its urban settlement, compared to previous historical capital, presented diverse planimetric features that anticipated the future evolution of Japanese urbanism. Instead of the rigid grid, It can be said that developed, reproducing on a urban scale, the typical planimetric traits of a Shinto shrine. A main road axis links the entrance of the city, simbolically played by the Sagami Bay, to the most sacred and important place of the city, the Tsurugaoka Hachimangūshrine.

The rest of the city has built around the main street in which, at almost the same distance, one from each other, are simbollically placed three Torii. Again a similarity with native religious architecture that can be considered as a sort of urban rebellion, in contrast with the previous trends.

In opposition the the Western world, the street and the closed space dominate the urban configuration. Open spaces are predominantly included within buildings or building blocks and are made to be appreciated from the inside. Distinctive traits that can be also found, under different forms, in the Japanese city.

But switching back to the social origin of the Chinese city, dated back to the first half of the second millennium, the beginning of the Shang period (XVI century), the most interesting fact is the delay in the development of the state compared to other river civilizations. This is mainly because of the difficulties in exploiting water resources from the Huong-Ho, the Yellow River due to the accumulations of loess, which characterize its water basin and it color that gives the name to the river.

mily and caste ties instead of conditions of citizenship, in relation to the urban or rural residetial location. This feauture, compared to other civilization is a uniqueness of the Chinese world.

Essentially, it can be said that, in this case, the contrast between city centers and country does not exist, at least from the political and juridical point of view. This practically equal relation between the city and the countryside has conditioned the role and the importance of the latter in the urban history of the country.

Indeed, nowhere as in the Chinese case can be indentified such a continuous social peasant class that, to mention an example, even some literary streams and artistic movements have developed mainly from cultural centers located in the countryside.

Another testimony in this sense is given by the the decisive revolutionary transformation of the Chinese history always started from the country.

For what concerned the urban and consequently the social division, the administrative and technocratic functions were conducted from the centre of the city from which all the commercial work in the countryside were coordinated. In this way, because of the completely self-sufficiency of the Chinese village, the city was not even a coveted desination for integration and social ascent.

This spatial urban organization rooted so much in the urban morphology that has remained unchanged until the modern age.

This factor deeply marked the formation of the Chinese social class in order to cope against similar conditions. In this way it was fored a strong monopoly with stron pressuresover the peasant class. This system of government was above all determined by fa63

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64

Kamakura plan

CHINESE GRID

中国のグリッド

ジョカマチ・スパイラル・システム

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CASTLE TOWN 城下町

Almost all of the major Japanese city urban developement derives from the Joka-machi design body, better known as “castle town” or even better, analyzing deeper its etymological composition, “the town below the castle”. It refers in fact to all types of urban Japanese settlements where a city surrounds a feudal castle.

As a matter of fact, still today, among the all 47 prefectual Japanese capitals, 30 derives directly from the castle town pattern, including the largest ones and even the capital city Tokyo.

The castle town model is a crucial linking element which, emerging from the premodern period, in addition to imposing itself on other typologies, was able to mark and leave its footprint also in the modern Japanese urbanism.

These towns, that developed near the famous castles still visible nowadays in many Japanese cities, were constituted by different areas with their own spatial system in a manner of a mosaic. Their advent dates back to the Sengoku period, called also “Age of Warring States”, lasted from 1467 to 1603. It was an era in the Japanese history characterized almost by social upheaval and steady armed conflicts, in which the main functions of the Joka-machi were military, represented by the castle, but also administrative and commercial concentrated in the city itself. Nevertheless the construction of these castles continued even after, or 66

rather, in the Edo period, also called Tokugawa period, which lasted from 1603 to 1868, in a nearly pacified country, less as a military base and besides more as a political and economical core for the Bakufu, which is the goverment, and the so called Han or domains. This shift was permitted thanks to the absence of wars, economic and cultural growth, that characterized this period of time when Japan was under the Tokugawa shogunate, which was the last feudal military goverment of the country. The term Tokugawa therefore refers to the name of a powerful hereditary land holdings Japanese family, named typically also daimyo.

In this last term in fact dai stands for “large”, and myo refers to myoden that means provate land. Shogunate, bakufu or shogunshoku instead indicate the goverment of the shogun, which was the military dictator of Japan holding profound power over feudal territories.

The edificated area in question was essentially divided into three main parts. The castle, surrounded by defensive walls and moats, often positionated on a dominant hill, slightly distant from the rest of the town.

Then, immediately after, the high rank samurai area and finnally, often separated by a rampart, the actual urban area consisting of districts, called traditionally machi. Inside, houses were tightly positionated on each side of the main street, which passed through the front of the castle to symbolize power and authority, in order to make it more dif-

ジョカマチ・スパイラル・システム

Himeji Castle Town Source: /archdaily.com/872445/ad-classics-himeji-castle-ikeda-terumasa

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CASTLE TOWN

ficult reaching directly the castle. For this reason most of the roads were cranked, or had dead ends, to elongate the road to the centre of the fortress. Furthermore the spatial network of each zone followed three main foundamental principles.

Firstly, the whole structure is organized by views towards the ridges of surrounding mountains, with the main castle tower and major turrets positionated as landmarks from the view points, near the most important spatial and linear elements as streets, rivers and moats. Secondly, all the components of the castle town and the natural landscape elements, such as mountain ridges are located in order to respect the distinctive geometrical relationship amog them, this characterized the man-made urban space with an organic and structural order. Thirdly, each castle town is spatially articulated and placed with its own modular composition which corresponding to about 30 kens.

Their construction, newly designed in the late-sixteen and early-seventheen centuries, was an expression of the power but also of the aesthetics of the land-holding military lords, the so called daimyo. In this term, dai means “large”, and myo stands for myoden whose significance is “private land”.

A rational and functional urban structure

physical form of the new construction were totaly related to the landscape and the topography of the area in question, as well as the spatial composition that reflected the characteristics of the surrounding natual settings, by conserving the particular views of it from the town.

These feauture do not impeded the landscape transformation in order to accomodate in the best way as possible the new urban settlements.

was needed in order to evidence the political and administrative power over the entire feudal area, but also to mantain the residential space under a strictly zoned division according to social class.

Nevertheless, a major design principle that stands over all the design philosophy of the castle towns and justify most of the project and design choices, can be resumed in the principle called Feng-Tsui.

It indicates a Chinese system of blending with the surrounding environment that was introduced in the early modern period into the garden and city planning. It literally means “wind-water” and it is closely connected to Taoism. The main criterion that reflects it appear into the design planimetry of the castle town. The location and the

The main danger, in fact, came from the internal rebels who established themselves in military strongpoints.

Moreover, the presence of a motuntainous territory and a predominantly wooded landscape, greatly influenced the developement and the design of this kind of fortresses, which therefore took advantage of the presence of many hilltop sites to potentiate their topography position.

The characteristic planning of these towns involved such transformative procedures in order to permit the achievement of the intricate requirements of modern urban society. In addition, this proves and emphasize even more the substantial difference, in terms of traditional architecture, of the Japanese uniqueness in front of the entire Asian continent.

An almost total absence of walled towns represents thus the biggest variation compared for instance to Korea or China, where the defensive wall had a crucial role in the wellness and in the growth of the urban centres. A missing defensive border structure is also motivated by a convenient geographical position that isolate the archipelago from the threat of barbarian invasions.

Because of placing convenience and nearness material availability, these type of native fortress, known as yamajiro, or “mountain castle”, continued to be built for a long time, even after the introduction of the use of new materials like stone, which changed dramatically the history of their construction.

城下町

ジョカマチ・スパイラル・システム

Depending on their topography positioning, the name of the castles changes.

Those built in fatlands, surrounded in most cases by rivers, swamps and man-made moats, would be called hirajiro. In this case, sites were chosen where waterways could be used as natural barriers to counteract eventual aggresions, while stone ramparts were constructed as a base on which the castle was located.

A significant example of this type of local settlement is the Nagoya Castle, located in Aichi Prefecture, central Japan, in addtion to have being the core of one of the most important castle towns in the entire country, that is the so called Nagoya-juku, established in 1613. It was, as a matter of fact, the second of the nine post stations on the Minoji road, which belonged to a group of eight secondary routes linked to the main and best known Five Routes, or Gokaido, built during the Edo Period.

It represented an important point of connection between the Nakasendo and the Tokaido routes which were both significant trade lanes at the time. Another way to pronouncing Nagoya Castle is “Mejio” which reflects the importance of this structure and its cultural influence through the history because it is used still nowadays, to indicate

in the city of Hikone, in Shiga Prefecture.

Its planimetry is formed on the basis of a concentric urban conformation, with a clear block division according to a social class distribution through the concentric spaces created by three encircling moats, in which can be observe three different and distinguishable discricts.

A inner block is formed by a hill situated in its center, which faces Lake Biwa, the Japanese biggest lake, and it is entirely surrounded by a moat. The main castle tower complex, several compounds with turrets, the area of the omote goten, or the front palace edifice with administrative aims and the Lord’s residence buildings take place in this first block, underlining in this way a good use of the natural landscape morphology.

many city institutions, such as parks, metro’s lines and universities.

stands beyond this second block. In this manner the division of the residential area is strictly outlined according to a social standing. Samurai dwellings and Buddhist temples faced the middle and the outer moats while commoners’ houses were located behind them and were arranged depending on occupation. The residential but even more the commercial purpose of these area is evidenced by the names that were assigned to each division. Aburaya-machi or Oil Sellers Town, Uoya-machi or Fish Dealers Town, Okeya-machi or Wooden-Bucket Makers Town and Shokunin-machi or Artisans Town are some examples that testify it.

Whereas those constructed on a hill or a low mountain, defined as 20 to 100 meters high, surrounded by a plain, are called hirayamajiro, hirayama means in fact “fatland-mountain”. This third type combines some of the advantages presented by the other two castle types, combining their strong points. The main tower was built on the top of the hill in order to be in a more safer position just like the yamajiro, but was also surrounded by moats and defensive walls in a similar way to the hirajiro castles.

Residential quarters were built instead at the foothills of the high ground. A representative examples include Hikone Castle, located

Outside the central part can be found another block which hosts houses of upper class samurai, or chief retainers and other high ranked vassals of the domain.

This outer block is also surrounded by a moat which defines a border with the real town, consisting of a residential district for both warriors and ordinary inhabitants and quarters with commercial purposes, which

A third moat limits this area. The grid of the streets through the years exapanded but still 69

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Hikkone Castle Town plan

CASTLE TOWN

城下町

ジョカマチ・スパイラル・システム

Source: /www.nakasendoway.com/the-story-of-hikone-castle-town

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retaining the initial framework pattern of the old joka-maki.

The Hikone castle town was apropos planned as a civil engineering project, on a large urban scale. The surrounding area, that was originally a marshland, was drained thanks to the displacement of the course of the Seri River which originally flowed into the Matsubara Inlet of Lake Biwa.

Completed in 1622 is one of the only 12 Japanese castles with the original keep and one of only five other castles listed as a national treasure.

It must be also said that many castle towns were originated from the native “mountain castles” that gradually changed its position in favor of other more accessible locations.

In fact, until latter half of the sixteenth century, castles were nearly all of this type.

Before the sixteenth century, during the period of civil wars, castle and fortress were constructed, mostly for military reasons to take advantage of the mountain’s topography, on hill tops, while the associated villages were built on the nearby lower slopes.

Continuing on this way, in the Edo period, dated from 1603 to1868 and called also Tokugawa Period, their location gradually shifted from hills to plains. Fatland positioning suggests that political and economic considerations were more relevant that strategic ones in sitting. In fact, they were developed more and more in the flat lands at the feet of these mountains, considering above all the stable economic, cultural and population growth, the strict social order isolated from foreign policies that characterized this peaceful period of the Japanese history.

Bitchu Matsuyama Castle, known also as Takahashi Castle, located in Takahashi, Okayama Prefecture is a notable example of mountain castle with the highest elevation above the sea level in Japan.

In Murakami Castle, also known as Maizuru-jo, located in Murakami, northen Ni72

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gata Prefecture, only the main castle body is situated on the top, the second and the third moats instead are located at the feet of the mountan.

This indigenous architectural form was the product of about 100 years of edification, roughly from 1530 to 1630.

In all the examples It can be noticed an intellingent and also economic use of the landscape. Only the summit of a mountain or hill was stripped of enough trees sufficient to provide the building materials for the construction.

In order to prevent soil erosion and provide a natural defensive barrier, the forest on the slopes of the hill were left untouched. But over time, many things changed, primarily in relation to a different use of the slopes and of the peaks of the mountains. A more creative approach and technique was introduced with the aim of reshape the entire mountainside. The gaps between adjacent ridges was filled up by stripping away almost entirely the wooded hillsides creating also ditches around them. The result was a sort of a network between inner and outer baileys, each overlooking the one underneath, also thanks to a several numbers of Intermediate levels that were created. As the techinque developed, as time goes by, interlocking fileds were created on the top of the hills, in some cases, where was possible, increasing the leveled top area wherein the castle was placed.

This type of fortification, that were linked together, are called sengouku yamashiro.

Many of them were edificated during the homonymous Sengoku Period,1467–1603.

The most symblic sample that represents the most the use of this style, before the introduction and then the widespread use of stone-clad basis, was the Shikizan castle constructed in 1536, located at the top of the Mount Shigi, in Ikoma District, Nara.

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Interlockin fields were created with the aim to connect not only a series of inner and outer baileys located onthe peaks of the mountains but also diverse intermadiate levels. The result was a network of natural and sculpted earth bastions obtained by carving the mountain.

A similar comparison could be done with the Dutch fortificartions that were built in Europe, roughly in the same period of time, but considering two main distinctions. Firstly, they were constructed on a flat surface and, secondly, they were created by adding material to the landscape instead of removing large parts of it.

The biggest weakness of the sengouku yamashiro model was the inner instability of the natural fondations that were built from a sculpted slope, just where the trees of the forest were missing because removed.

During the same Sengoku Period, the use of the stone, that characterize almost entirley the ideal image of the Japanese castle, not that less its most lasting visual feature, was introduced.

The great stone base can be identified even in the most damaged castle site being one of its most, if not the most, foundamental design element. It resolved the problems of instability and highness that were found in the prevous models. In fact, three storeys was the maximum limit that could be reached and risked for a tower, considering also the not easiest weather Japanese condition such as torrential rain, not to mention typhoons, earthquakes or sieges that caused only additional ravage to fondations and structures. In addition, a part from contrast the problems of soil erosion or weather damage, it allowed castle designers to raise new taller structures, that would been thought out of the question in the previous periods of time.

Even though the evolution of the Japanese bastions was very different from the Europan, in a particular regard to construction

techniques, a comparison can be made with those ones of the trace italienne. Even if the latter ones were built completely from scratch, from stone or from earth while the Japanese ones tended to be carved and then clad in stone. Nevertheless, the result was the same in both cases, an immense thick defensive wall.

It must be said, like mentionated earlier, that the new style of stone castles did not replaced immediately the earlier models. Due to a financial issues but also to the established satellite network which was created between one main castle, called honjo, other minor strucutures, called shijo, and also another network of sub-satellite castles, the change process of replacement of the previous models took a long period of time.

Furthermore in some cases these shijo operated indipendently of the honjo, being also a miniature version of the man castle but demostrating a similar progress use of materials such as stone basis and wooden towers. This kind of advancement maybe would not be seen already in the sub-satellite castles which probably were still in the sengoku yamashiro old style with probbably little parts in elaboration.

Therefore, even in the1590s, mainly because of the satellite system, it was possible to see all the different period of developement of the Japanese castle at one time.

The stone introduction allowed castle designer to raise new structures not even conceivable before. The form of the base geometry changed by sloping outwards in a similar way as Europen artillery bastions did but with different motivations and purposes.

While in the European case the horizontal geometry was concerned in order to find the ideal angle for providing covering fire, with a minimum amount of blind spots as possible, in the Japanese one, due also to different morphological settlements, such as the persistent threat of earthquakes, were 73

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more reasons realted to the strenght of the structure of the whole urban settlement. The biggest goal were, in addition to hold back the inner core, that one whose aim was to take the weight of the main tower, also called tenshu or tenshukaku. The name means “high heavenly protector”, but is often translated as “donjon”, a term used to indicate the inner tower in the medieval European castels. In any case, it is the largest tower, usually multistoried, sited at the center of the castle complex, called hommaru, at the highest location in the castle grounds.

The main tower can be a single element within the whole structure or, in other examples, connected to other minor secondary buildings.

When the major tower is linked by a passageway to a secondary tower, or other structures, it is the case of a so called linked tower. The compuond tower instead is the name given when the composition is made by a main tower that includes attacched secondary buildings or other towers.

Lastly, when a main tower is connected by pssageways to multiple secondary towers is called connected tower. Himeji Castle is an example of a connected tower style. The additional minor towers area called yagura and have a similar design to the major tower.

Despite of all these kind of castle styles, related to their altimeter position in space, it can be found a general overall layout that includes all the design elements they have in common.

Kuruwa is one feature detecteble in all the Japanese castles. It is a general term that indicates several courtyards and enclosed areas whereby the keep stands at the highest point of this area which is included by the castle and surrounded by a numerous baileys linked together.

It serves as a defensive area, provides space for additional facilities, residential quarters for common soldiers and represents a 74

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foundamental fixture in all Japanese castles.

The size and the number of kuruwa within a fortress changed through time. In fact, those which were built during the middle ages were often small in dimensions but several as number.

The others, that were built after and during the early modern period, were often of a larger area but lesser in number.

Many other terms take from -kuruwa or -maru may differ depending on region or time period.

The importance related to the kuruwa was crucial, in fact it was one of the first points taken into consideration by the designer, because it defines the defensive system of the entire castle.

The topography offered often, in this primary issue that regards the castle’s life, a great help.

It sets firstly the limits of the exploitable field.

Then mountains, rivers and sea could also be used like natural defensive elements.

For instance, Nagashino Castle, located in the eastern Aichi Prefecture, known also because site of the battle of 1575, was built on a triangualar rock just where two rivers joined. Inuyama Castle, located in the city of Inuyama, aslo in Aichi Prefecture, instead take advantage of a river, the Kiso River, and a high mountain as two natural defensive elements.

Or again Bitchu-Matsuyama Castle, located in Takahashi, Okayama Prefecture, is notable as the castle with the highest elevation above the sea level in Japan, while Takamatsu Castle, located in Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture, and Karatsu Castle, situated in Karatsu, Saga Prefecture, used the ocean as natural moats.

In some cases, when the water provide a subtantian influence regarding the castle’s defense and then its lifetime, like Takashima and Zeze which respectively are surroun-

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ded by Lake Suwa and Lake Biwa, the style could be called fujo, which means “floating castels”.

re and the remains of the Mito Castle, in the city of Mito, in Ibaraki Prefecture, are two examples of the use of this style.

Continuing to analyze the space compostion of these castles and mainly the most important part that more than any other survived in many of them, which is the kuruwa, it can be recognized more subdivisions that are always recurrent.

Its core, the innermost area, known as hon maru, contains the keep and other residential spaces. The second courtyard, know as ni no maru and the third called san no maru, serve as auxiliary areas. According to their disposition, three different but common layout castle styles can be distinguished.

The Hashigokaku style, works like a straicase in which the hon maru is the apex of the castle and needs to back onto a lake, river or cliff. Whereas the ni no maru and the san no maru descend consequently in steps.

This settings is applicable only to a yamashiro pattern. Examples of this style could be found in Aizu-Wakamatsu Castle, located in the center of the city of Aizuwakamatsu, in Fukushima Prefecture.

The rinkaku style has the hon maru situated in the centre and, arranged in concenttric rings around it, respectively the ni no maru and then the san no maru.

The ruined Shizouka Castle, located in the city of Shizouka, and the Tanaka Castle, in Fujieda city, both situated in the Shizouka Prefecture are two examples that follows this style. While the Osaka Castle is the nearest approximation of it, still visible nowadays.

Even though this may seem to be the perfect layout composition for the hon maru, surprisingly there are only few examples of this type of castles. This is due to the fact that, for this kind of pattern the moats and the walls had to cover an extremely extended area, compared to the one occuopied by the hon maru. Another reason, a part from the cost, was the too intense defensive work which had to be done in case of attack.

The renkaku style has the hon maru and the ni no maru in the center, while the san no maru is placed around them. According to this layout disposition the global space occupied is minor but, because of the more exposed position of the hon maru, an extra defense cover was necessary. Sendai Castle, in the city of Sendai, in Miyagi Prefectu-

In the case of a castle of large dimensions, the three maru would in turn be surrounded by others outlying kurowa, such a outer courts, called sotogurowa or soguruwa. In this manner a sort of maze was created in order to contrast a possible enemy invasion in the structure in its way to the keep.

An emblematic example that totaly embrace this kind of system of interlocking walls and gates, aside from being considered as the finest surviving case of prototypical Japanese castle architecture, is the Himeji Castle, located in the city of Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture.

The period of time between The Battle of Sekigahara, on October 21 of the year 1600, and the siege of Osaka, devided into a series of battle that starts on November 8, 1614 and ended on June 1615, saw the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate. The end of these battles represents also the beginning of what would became more than two and a half centuries of peace, from 1600 and 1868, under the Tokugawa shogunate feudal Japanese military government.

These events marks together the most furious spate of castle-building in the history of Japanese developement.

The shoguns were the rulers of the country and each one of them was a member of 75

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Source: Japanese castles 1540 - 1640

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Three common style of castle layout

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a Tokugawa clan. They ruled from the Edo Castle and for this reason those period of time became known as the Tokugawa period called also Edo period.

The baku-han system, one of the most significant polity of their goverment, changes radically the local administration in which, through the introducton of new government regulations, the daimyo’s castles became the focal point in the menagement issues.

Moreover, with the introduction of the regolation according to which it must be one castle for one province, was implemented a plan of reconstruction and redevelopement of provincial castles.

In this way the power of the central authority was split to benefit the one of the feudal lords that increased the expansion territory of their goverment like never before.

A similar comparison can take place with the formation of the European capitalistic system. Indeed, in the western world, over a long period of time, the disgregation of the central power permitted the developement of the middle class. This process change dramatically the face of European urban centres, together with the establishment of a new urban topology, located outside the ancient city center and represented principally by the castle.

Two suggestive examples that can be mantioned are the easily readeble cases of Borgo Pio in Rome and the longbard addition in the city of Bologna that shows, through a radial road system, a clear detachment from old Roman urban pattern.

This peripheral location symbolize the birthplace of the modern European medieval city. It can be said that its pattern design was very different from the one of the Roman foundation, represented by a geometric chessboard, as well as those of the Japanese Middle Ages compared to the one of the classical Chinese layout.

Simultaneously with the weakening of the central authority, new models of cities started to rise.

If in the Japanese capitals of the Eighth century there were a substantial urban transplant of the Chinese city model, the fothcoming urban history moved in an other direction.

As a matter of fact, a part from the cities of Nara and Kyoto which can be considered as exceptions, Kamakura, a coastal city in Kanagawa Prefecture, located about 50 kilometres away from the today’s capital Tokyo, seat from the end of the twelfth century of the first shonugal geverment during the Kamakura Period, represents a crucial turning point in the Japanese urban history.

The town symbol of the Japanese Middle Ages, demostrates different planimetric characteristics from the previous urban models like Kyoto, which is the most faithful reproduction of the ancient Chinese capital Chang’an, anticipating the future developments of the Nipponic urbanism.

The city develops in a linear way following a main and central road axis being also surrounded on three sides by hills and open on the forth to the south, towards the open water of the Sagam Bay. The main street, which is long 1.8 kilometres, is called Wakamiya Oji which links directly the sea to the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, the most important Shinto shrine in the urban area. It is an unusual use of a road because it represented at the same time the city’s main avenue and the leading path that traditionally approaches a Shitno shrine, the so called sando. Since its construction, at the time of the Kamakura shogunate, it has been the backbone of the city’s street grid and pattern development, aside from the core of its cultural and religious life.

Wakamiya Oji was built in 1182 and means “Young Prince Avenue” as a prayer for the safe delivery of Yoritomo’s first son and future shugun Yoriie.

Archaeological excavations of the area 77

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Himeji Castle construction

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Source: /archdaily.com/872445/ad-classics-himeji-castle-ikeda-terumasa

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recently showed that originally it was 33 metres wide, much more than now, was entirely flanked by pine trees and on each side there were a 1.5 metres ditch.

The avenue, being also a shrine’s approach, passes through three torii that are numbered in descending order starting from the Shinto shrine. The closest to Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu is called San no Torii, or the third gate, the second one is called Ni no Torii and the first one is Ichi no Torii. Until the Edo Period the nomencalture was quite different.

In fact the torii closest to the sea was called Hama no Otorii which means “Great Beach Torii” symbolizing a deep connection between the city and the sea, being also conidered, for this reason, the holiest of the three. Although they have been destroyed and rebuilt several times, the third and the second one were built in reinforced concrete in 1934 and are paintend red, while the first one is made of white stone. This latter was thus considered a magnificent example of stne torii, that in August 1904 was declared National Treasure.

Returining on the construction of the Wakamiya Oji road, it was built by Minamoto no Yoritomo, the founder and the first shogun of the Kamakura Shogunate of Japan, as an imitation of Kyoto’s Suzaku Oji which is the name goven to the most important avenue that leads to the imperial Palace, starting from the south in all the Japanese capitals based on a traditional Chinese pattern.

As also the widest road it leads directly away from the main gate whereas traditionally the Imperial Palace faces towards south.

Fujiwara-kyo, the Imperial capital for sixteen years, between 694 and 710, Heijo-kyo, capital city from 710 to 740 and again from 745 to 784 and Heian-kyo, more known as Kyoto, capital of Japan over one thousand years, more precisely from 794 to 1868, within an interruption in 1180, had their own Suzaku Avenue.

In the case of toda’s Kyoto, it stopped being the central road, because of a gradual 80

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abandonment of the west of the city. Until the Meji Period, it lastly served as as the wester border of the town. Nowadays it is still a major street called Senbon Street or Senbon Avenue.

The only remaining trace of Chinese city model is without doubt the urban straight line represented by the Wakamiya Oji. Starting from this street ahead, all the city development lost any past references from the previous urban shapes form and from which derived the unusual fish bone planimetry that had a lot diffusion in the major Japanese urban centres.

This uncommon urban model recall in some way the path, in a more bigger urban scale, of the entrance in the traditional Shinto shrine. It can be interpreted as a sort of traditional mark that remained through time although all the influences that have come from the Chinese continent. From this point forward, new model of cities started to take shape inthe form of !”additional cities” just around already existing centres structured in specialized functions.

Another likeness that can be mentioned is, both in the born of the western medieval town and that one in the “additional” Japanese town, the still remaining trace of their initial identity.

This imprinting is due to a range of economical and political functions that nevertheless continued to influence the growth and the developement of the new kind of centres. While in Europe can be cited merchant cities such as Troyes, in France, Bruges e Grand, in Flanders, port cities like the Maritime republics in Italy or manufacturing cities as Florence, in the Japanese case it can be found a subdivision by descriptive categories.

Minato-machi indicates a group of port cities located along the Seto Inland Sea, which separats three of the four main island of Japan, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyusho. Or

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they can be found on the western coast of the archipelago where, for a long time, trades with the continent took place.

Compared to other type of cities they presented an uncommon planimetry, very different from the typical and geometrically regular Chinese pattern, noticeable in many other examples. One of the main reason was the inconstant topography in which they growth that influenced also their unusual population density.

To this group belong cities like Amagasaki, an industrial city located in Hyogo Prefecture, Shimotsui, in Okayama Prefecture, Shiotsu, in Wakayama Prefecture and Daicho, in Hiroshima Prefecture.

Monzen-machi, or, literally “gate-front towns”, indicate temple cities formed, especially during the Edo period, nearby religious istitutions. More precisely just in front of the temple entrance with basically a commercial purpose and acceptance function. The city of Ise is a typical model that best represents this town pattern. It belongs to that type of city that has developed along a main road axis.

The street that leads from the centre to the Shrine dedicated to the worship of Amaterasu, which is overlooked by the typical machi-ya houses, as a matter of fact, has become a real urban district called Oharaimachi. Another notable case is the city of Kamakura, in Knagawa Prefecture, which could be defined as a monzen-machi because of its close connection with the most important Shinto shrine in the city which is the Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu.

The city has develped around the shinto that still represents the most important cultural and geographical urban reference fo the area.

Jinai-cho can be explained as a smilar case to the previous examples, but with one pimary and unique different feature which represents an exeption in the entire Japanese city evolution scenary.

They growth was always associated, just like the kind of city mentioned before, with a Shinto or a Buddust temple, but with the peculiarity of being surrounded by defensive walls. The presence of this defensive barrier, positionated also all around the religious centre, is justified by a particular violent period of civil conflicts, from the 16th century onwards.

The period of time just successive, that one between the 16th and the 17th century, is seen as the real era when the Japanese city was built. Those were indeed peaceful years, under the authoritarian regime of Tokugawa Ieyasu. In this manner and to about fifty years later, also other types of cities took its shape.

Shukuba-maki which means post-station cities, indicates a urban centre often positionated near the biggest road junctions.

Observed in a planimetric perspective, it developed as a linear derivation through a secondary axis, from the main road.

Typically, during Edo period, these roads, called Kaido, were foundamental, just like the Appian way in ancient Roman roads, for what concerned the evolution of the trasnportation system in the entire country. The major and so called Five Routes, all started from Edo, and connected the capital of Japan with the outer provinces. The most famous and celebrated is the Tokaido road, “East Sea Road”, which connects, through 53 post stations, Edo to Kyoto.

As will be seen later, maybe it is just starting from here, that the role of the street began to leave Indelible imprints in the Japanese imaginary cosmos.

Finnally, the last but also the most influential group is called joka-maki. This term referes to a city model which had the most significant developement in the Edo era, but also a big impact, in most cases, for what concerns today’s cities affirmation and had 81

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82

Source: Cartographic Japan: A History in Maps

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Edo Castle Townt

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even a big impact the to Japanese urban modern pattern.

With the peaceful time that occurred in the Tokugawa period, many castles, something like a hundred of them were constructed as capitals of feudal domains, became a point of reference to the castle towns that arised alongside them and from which the today’s biggest Japanese cities derives their urban morphology.

In this type of city can be recognized three main parts. The area, often quite distant from the real urban centre, located on a higher level in a dominant position, that holds the castle. Immediately next, stands the second zone that houses the samurai with the higher ranking and then, separated by a palisafe, the third area that hosts samurai with a lower raking, but also traders, craftsmen and common citizens.

At the border of the city were instead located the religious temple area that had also military functions. These type of defensive weapons can be also noticed in the intricate composition of the streets that could be observed in the residential areas of the castle town.

This policentric and modular organization, with its distinct quarters, that characterized this kind of towns was inherited by many Japanese modern cities. The distinction of the areas of this kind of urban centres is still visible even today through the contrast between the higher side of the castle, that was dedicated to political and economical issues, and the lower one, formed predominantly of mercantile and residential districts.

This situation is for example detectable in some ways in Tokyo. The “high city” of Yamanote opposes to the “low city” of Shitamachi in which can be still found some ancient, urban and even cultural, trait.

Continuing instead a comparison between the europen and the Japanese middle class

origin, the joka-maki sample could be interpretated such as a genetic urban model and also a point of reference for both sides.

This process conducted- to the formation of the middle class which played a leading role in the modern Western history.

Taking instead into account, from an etymological point of view, the term jo, that belongs to the entire word joka-maki, it can be noticed its meaning of “castle” that, at the same time, could be referred to the european case.

As a matter of fact, in origin, the word “village” meant simply “castle”. Over the time, others words, that were added to the vocabulary, such as burgum or faubourg, which refere respectively to guard fortresses and suburb of a fortress, underline that process of urban aggregation around a castle.

But taking also into account the final word machi, which can also be read as cho, it presents on one hand a series of meanings very distant from the first chinese urbanisation in Japan, but on the other hand very close the the Europen significance of “village”. “Housing district”, “neighborhood” and even “street” are some of these definitions associated with machi, that along with the whole joka-maki expression, point out the similarity, in the developement with the European medieval villages.

Examining further the sense of the word cho, which is used nowadays, primarily for addressing purposes in the Japanese municipalities, it can be notice that it has a correspondence with the term cho-nin, which means just “cho-man” or rather “townsman” that is the right translation for the european bourgeois. This can be explained, especially in Edo, in which cho was used in order to indicate the neighborhoods inhabited by craftsmen and merchants, or those who represented the middle class. A prove is given by the expression chonin-bunka which literally means bourgeois culture.

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This historical and cultural process, which marked a crucial moment in the Japanis urbanism, is of crucial importance also because it results an exception if compared to other cases of urban, social and cultural developement process in the premodern Asian panorama.

Absolutey truthful and remarkable the dynamism of a urban civilization born through a type of hybrid city, perfectly representeed by model of the joka-machi, inhabited by a various middle social class that had anyhow transmitted its own cultural predominance to the whole society.

In any case, a part from the similarities in comparison with the western evolution of the urban pattern and social middle class, it must be recognized also a main but evident difference between this arise, that actually stands just at the beginning of the entire evolution process.

In contrast to the English indutrial revolution, that started from the bottom and succeeded and prevailing over the society through new production techniques, in Japan, the social class of the chonin remained almost totaly excluded from the industrialization process.

In fact, the autocratic and predominant military force of the shogundid supervise and controlled the albeit lively Japanese middle class. Only years later, during the Meji period the industrial redevelopement started, giving birth to a modern capitalistic system, but was all guided by the dominant class made of feudal lords called daimyo and the military nibility of samurai.

In all this process the castle town represents still today the most faithful reference model, for what concens urban traditional traits but also for trace the permanets characteristics of the Japanese city.

Indications of continuity could be find in 84

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an extremely important point of difference between the far estern and western cities.

This discourse starts from the facade of the buildings and somehow resumes the initial argumentation about the emptyness that began firstly, from a historical point of view, with the collocation of the Shinto shrines In the peripheral teramachi. It can be said that, regardless of the importance or the final purpose of the edifice in question, the interior space, called naka, takes on more rilevance, especially from a visual point of view, compared to the soto, which is the outside impact.

This concept leads the Japanese street to a central role for what concern the exterior and interior appearance that, in turn, is also related to its tradition through historical heritege and collective memory.

The function of the cho, which not accidentally assumed the meaning of street, can be compared to the one which plays the square in the western world.

Still nowadays, the first cho of a city hosts all the major services aligned on it, being the most relevant element in the entire area.

Even more, it had a crucial importace, as road axis, in the formation and expansion of the joka-machi urban topogenesis.

This urban disposition, that created urban aggregation adn thus a rapid growth of urban centers, encouraged the linear expansion of the cities. The typical fich bone pattern was the configuration that permitted a fast expansion of this kind of centres, around the castle area but mostly alongside the linear suggested by the main street. The expansion of Edo is an emblemathic exemple because in only one century, through the remarkable increase of its machi, became the most populated city center already in the eighteenth century, by reaching one million inhabitants.

Demographic and urban expansion, through the castle town model, represented an

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ideal starting point for the industrial developement which took place during the Meji period.

Roads and railways network implementation had again a foundamental impact in the formation of today’s gigantic urban agglomeration such as the one of Tokyo and Osaka, retracing the ancient road arteries of Kaido.

The urban role that has the station in the modern Japanese city is of utmost importance considering, the polycentric and changeable character which distinguish them. In order to define the present morphology of the urban settlement and evolutoin, is helpful refer the attention to the Metabolism manifesto which, in most of its ideal concepts, resumes the nowadays situation of discontinuity and perennial movement of the major Japanese cities.

As mentioned earlier, the original urban form of each joka-maki, established in the Edo period, has had a foundamental effect especially in relation to the transformative modernization process. The gradual transformation of each urban configuration has been regulated by the existing urban context. Every castle town has a clear spatial structure that was able to handle urban improvement proposal necessary in the urban growth.

The most important and useful elements that conditionated this process of transformation were major streets, castle districts and railways stations. Analyzing the disposition of these essential items in relation to the surrounding urban morphology, five different structural and spacial types can be recognized.

The first type consists of a street scheme with a deformed grid pattern. This kind of layout is easy adaptable to the needs of modern town planning. According to three

main factors, all related to the main streets disposition that surrounds the area in question, these type of castle towns can be sub-categorized in four principal type of grid pattern. The direction of the national highway, which became the main element and the central street of each town. The direction of the castle town’s axis, which hosts along it the central shopping street. Finally the direction of the street from the main gate of the castle, also known as ote-mon gate, with often administrative and business purposes.

Depending on how these three main road arteries are arranged between them, in a parallel or perpendicular disposition, four subgroups of the first type can be identified.

In the most symple I.a type, all the three main paths are parallel to each other. The castel town axis, which is the main shopping street, is situated parallel to the ote-mon gate of the castle, as well as the national highway but often separated by commercial activities. This kind of pattern resulted particularly easy to adapt to the modernization process that begun in the Meji period. Himeji, Takada, Akita and Yamagata belongs to to this type.

In the case of the latter one the main station was deliberately located within the castle district in order to revitalize the old castle townld castle town that had been ditructed at the end of the Edo period. One of the most important principles in town planning is to integrate the the two districts divided by the railway and revitalized the entire area.

That is the reason why the road network was intended to fit the newly-located station into the heart of the city in order to mitigate the division between the castle district and the central business district.

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if not the fact that the national highway is positionated at right angle respect the other two axes that on the contrary are parallel between each other.

A part from this compositive distincition, the abilities to adapt to the modernization developement remain unaltered. Utunimiya, Wakayama and Fukui follows this pattern type.

Type I.c the main street is introduced into the castle town as a symbolic road in frontof the forehead gate of the castle. Functionally and geographically it serves also as a backbone of the city.

An example that belongs to this type of layout is Shizuoka, the capital city of Shizuoka Prefecture located in the Suruga plain which restricted somehow its topographical developement. The castle district is located on the north, the railway was laid out parallel to the historical highway, while the station was located at the end of the central commercial street.

In the type I.d the national highway is parallel to the ote-mon gate, while the axis of the castle town results at right angle, compared to both of them. Like in this type also in the I.b, the national highway runs through the central part of the castle town, curving inside of it.

In general in this distorted grid type there were common elements that had to interact with others newer. Nationwide railway system was laid out parallel with the main highway, such as the main street which linked the railway station to the central district.

The other streets were spread around in a variety of patterns.

The second type of Japanese castle towns is formed by radial street pattern that radiates in various directions. This kind of pattern had a purpose to control a large indipendent territory and is typical of Tohoku region which is the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan.

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In this case the railway station was usually located at the edge of the central district of the town, in order to avoid to cut off the street pattern system. Because of this initial disposition it was difficult to connect the old town and the new urban agglomeration. A new system of streets served, in relation to the increasing traffic within the area, as a solution to connect the station and the urban core.

Morioka, the capital city of Iwate Prefecture located in the Tohoku region of northern Japan, in particular placed in an alluvial dan of the Kitakami River, is a good example of this type of castle town with radial pattern containing many “T� intersections.

Its physical disposition is related to the natural form of the surrounding landscape and topography. During the Edo period the radial pattern was enough to handle the transportation that was mainly by means of water. But for the modern city new planning element were introduced. A long street was built in order to connect the station to the business core and create a shopping street.

The residential are was kept free of traffic thus the historical character of the area was conserved. By widening existing streets and connecting radial roads in areas outside the city centre were solutions to contrast the traffic increase.

The III type is typically located on a narrow hill. It has a strong axis-street towards the castle district, which is located on the edge of the hill. The axis of the castle town was laid out on the line of the ridge along which the main street ran. The lower town consisted of a mainly commercial districts. Because of its unusual pattern, all the reilways were located outside the central area. Topographical constraints have been, and continue to be still nowadays, the main issue of this kind of cities.

The IV type has a strong concentric spatial system resembling a whirlpool in shape.

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The main characteristic of this type is the presence of a long commercil street.

In this case the railway station was established away from the urban area because of the complexity of the topography. Around the station has developed commercial areas. Tsuruoka is an example where the revitalization of the old centre is on of the main issues. Two contrasting road patterns, one radial and the other grid, are evident. The inner part, was designated for commercial purposes and urban blocks, surrouding the area, were connected by the eadial street system to the major national highways.

Finally those towns with a spatial structures that tended to follow topographical conditions, such as seaside resorts, can be classified as a fifth type with a unique grid pattern. In this cases, like the others mantioned before, the configuration of the early modern castle town provides a crucial morphological frame.

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MICHI 道

In the analysis of the Japanese castle towns’ urban pattern, the role of the street, taken in consideration as an urban matrix, representing also their principle and most significant expansion axis, has been of paramount importance, even more than in the historical urban development of other Asian countries, but even in comparison to other continents.

Examining, even this time, the lexical composition of a word, in this case starting right from jokamachi, will be again a helpful exercise in order to prove useful elements in this sense.

As seen before, the first part of the word jo means castle, which recalls the european medieval villages, in paragon with some similar words, such as burgum used in the Middle Ages Europe, with also a similar etymological meaning.

But if the attention is shifted to the last part of the word, some other additional and interesting indication could be found. First of all, it is taken into account the word machi (町), whose pure significance is street, though it contains also a vast range of meanings. Neighborhood and residential district, words indicating both a urban area, but in a diverse scale, are two of its other purports.

Machi can also be pronounced as “cho”, one of its other acceptation. This term is still use even nowadays as the intermediate unit of the Japanese addresses system, as 232

well as becoming one of the most important urban element, whence towns begins its urban expansion. It can also be a useful topic from which it can already be comprehensible a foundamental point in the Japanese aesthetic and spatial culture.

As a matter of fact, it is based on a mechanism of Chinese boxes which incorporates increasingly smaller concentric space portions. Starting from the city, to the ku (区), which is a ward that serves to subdivide the city in smaller departments, to the cho and then to an internal numeric sequence, within the cho, that leads to the apartment and until to the name of the occupant.

A system that is practically unintelligible for a Western person, not only because inverted, but also due to the fact that the numerical partitions inside the cho, deriving from historical factors related to the temporal order of houses construction, and not to the orientation, would be totally unrecognizable by a foreigner without the exact knowledge of the territory. The Japanese process reaches the subjective unit of the house through an external space which has received an unrepeatable imprint.

This trait fully expresses this logic wherewith the place is lived, not as an external observer, but instead from a more inner point of view. The interior that prevails over the outside, a true doctrine embedded in Japanese aesthetic spatiality.

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Cho has deep roots in the Japanese history, for instance it is present in the word chonin, meaning “townsman” and indicating the social class, consisting predominantly of merchants and craftsmen, that emerged in Japan during the early years of Tokugawa Period (1603 - 1868). In the past, in particular in Edo, today’s Tokyo, or in Heian-kyo, today’s Kyoto, it was used to indicate specifically the quarters inhabited by the middle class.

As a prototype, the street generate an ambiguous kind of urbanism. In dense townscapes each cho outlined a several and dinstinct number of roads, but only vaguely delineated as stated in a not clear everyday terminologies such as “kai-wai” which means literally “around that area”.

Thus, its use denoted in effect a strong connection with the social class activities of merchant community which faced, through their workshops, both sides of the street, called in this case ryogawa-cho.

Aligned with the nagaya or machiya, the traditional wooden townhouses, classically typefield in the historical capital Kyoto, with noka, the farm dwellings, that together represent the two categories of Japanese

Completely different compared to the Western street wall, this one was idealized flexible, composed of traslucent papaer paneled lattice screens, the so called shoji, and opaque rain shutters, the amado, that, for necessity, could be completely removed trasforming the path with the scope of sustain the diurnal and seasonal rhythms of city life. The comparison between space and time can be metaphorically identified here too. During the day, the street was the fulcre of the entire community.

The dimension of the street was defined by the shoji, that opened, allow the space to penetrate the private area of the households. In this way, domestic and commercial areas were diffused beyond the threshold, from inside to out, confusing the transition from the street to the house. On the contrary, by the night the amado were brought up, modifying the street in a silent spine for a private, interior night life.

Shoji, besides its principale function as space separotor, served also, for instance remained open during the summer days, as comfort generator, facilitating the ventilation for the homes, but even more such as a display tool for the various trades, by

vernacular architecture also know as minka, create a unique field of interaction among the inhabitants. Various trade activities were hosted in these common area considering also the accepted norms of such communities hardly encouraged any sort of delineations or distinction from private to pubblic.

Individual modest homes, made of simple wooden architecture, with poorly insulated timber walls, that separated one from another, displayed such translucency that allow the interiors to permeate the street through an elastic border.

providing glimpses into the inside space of the machiya.

The street, in fact, became such a malleable urban entity with the interior part of the houses, a sort of common engawa between the residents.

The activities and the rhythm of the street would assume even a more homogeneous appearance, in conjunction with the residences, during seasonal festivals and reli-

In this sense the role of the noren, a curtain, was also important for what concerns the visual impact of the commercial street life. It would hang in the entrance marking the boundary between families. Varying in color and size they facilitate the distinction from one shop to another, also in order to mark the trade of each dealer and adding simultaneously a soft kinetic item to the otherwise dry streetscape.

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gious ceremonies. It was here that the street became the behavioral counterpart to the absence of a defined meeting space. It became a sort of large, shapeless public field sustaining a form of communal activity that was constantly changing in space and time.

The urban architecture made of floating roofs will appear dominant than the walls that will seem such as a background to the constantly pulsating spatial entity.

In these circumstances the street is traditionally called the Japanese “non-street”, a transitory shared place, doubtful in form but defined by the activity within it.

More precisely the two different faces of the same urban agglomeration can be called correspondingly “unified wall” and “amoebic entity”. In order to analyze such trasformations and diverse rhythms, few remaining items are available in the traditional streets but more valuable information are provided by various medieval art sources.

Some examples could be the “Nenchu gyoji emaki”, originally painted about 1173, the “Ippen Shonin eden” painted in 1299 and the “(Rakuchu rakugai zu” dated between 1530-70 that can suggest the two elemental and relation direction mentioned earlier.

They are however distinguishable by the conventional perception of spatial voids and solids. During the private night hours, the traditional Japanese street is a “unified wall”, it has almost the same characteristics of the traditional Western street. It seems in fact that it was generated following a figural void by the building wall that flanks it.

In this case the street is seen more like a volume carved from the mass of the buildings, their facades seems to belong more to the path than to the buildings themselves.

On the contrary, during the day, thus when the wall is “opened”, the perceptual importance of the street changes and it does not 234

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seem to be an empty space consciously produced only by its surrounding edifices.

Moreover, the street facede can be interpreted such as a fragmented membrane which pervades the space from inside to outside, just like a momentary chaotic spatial fluid space. The feeling of the street as a defined spatial configuration has changed in something rambling and larger.

This plasticity remains the most distinct feauture of the traditional Japanese civic realm.

It challenges the common physical understanding of the formal civic space.

The transformation of the “unified wall” reaches its peak on the festive days from which the “non-street” was originated.

As seen, this established “urban” relation among citizen and street gives again a sort of a dynamic conception of the urban and architectural space. It can be described, recalling the characteristics related to the definition of ma, inside the typical city’s labyrinthine texture, like a transitional space. This concept is expressed in Japanese by the single word kodoteki.

Through this instance the perception of the ma is still identifiable as a foundamental element of the Japanese urban spatiality embodied in first place by the street, which surely is the most common urban space.

In the following step, the entrance to the house, the previously mentioned intervals do not cease. The entree is characterized by the so called genkan, the atrium where the shoes are taken away.

The house itself is elevated from the ground by means of poles generating an empty gap on its base and it is provided by the engawa. Is, in fact, as mentioned before, a transition space between the exterior and the interior. It is intended as a spatial but also a temporal diaphragm also used as a

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resting area. As a border, a focal point of the transition, it is connected, in a complementary way, to the logic of ma. In fact, it can be considered as the most symbolic and related space in relation to the ma concept, because it puts in common the two major feautures that characterize and defines it.

Then there is the shoji, the traditional sliding panels that can be opened to reach the inside rooms. Because of the presence of these transitional passages, within the house is still perceivable the external atmosphere.

The graduation whereby this intervals are modulated represents again the typically Japanese essence of space sensitivity.

The street, is also called more commonly michi, as an component of urban mosaic texture represented, aside from a foundamental element of urban topogenesis that delines the traditional Japanese town, also as seen earlier, a foundamental urban space of social aggregation. it can be said that it assumed more or less the same crucial role of what has meant the square for the European cities.

de and the inside has remained almost the same. The sofness of the paper laterns were replaced by the neon lights that, aside from draw the attention of the cistomers, they only serve as an indication to what is the internal content which still assume more importance and relevance.

Continuing over time, next to the roads, also the railways have become the main linear development axes.

In particular, also stations played a crucial urban element. A true reference point for urban orientation. A city in a city, a sort of a modern shukuba-machi in all its aspects.

This centres has transformed the city in a sort of urban organism in perennial movement and expansion. An architectural culture of provisionality that expresses itself, from the urban to the home interior scale, that can be summarized with the traditional phrase “ikken ichidai” , a sort of a principle of the global conception of living, which means “a home, a generation”.

Actually the difference in comparison to the Western world can be noticed already starting from the visual impact in the facades of buildings. What is relevant from an objective or subjective point of view, tends to get out of the outer look, in order to draw the attention to a hidden center.

The soto, whose translation is outside, does not matter, or counts much less than inside, called naka. For this reason is totaly absent the monumental decoration present moslty in the Western city centers. Collective memory is not entrusted to these symbolic items, but instead within the practices and mores of the traditional rituals.

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Hiroshige, Edo. Suruwaka machi

MICHI

道

ジョカマチ・スパイラル・システム

Source: /commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hiroshige,_Night_View_of_Saruwaka-machi.jpg

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JOKAMACHI SPATIAL SYSTEM

BIBLIOGRAPHY 参考文献

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ジョカマチ・スパイラル・システム

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