After examining two-room minka over the last six posts, the next subject for consideration in this long series on minka planning is, logically and predictably, three-room minka.
In the three-room layout type (san-madori-gata 三間取り型), a zashiki (座敷) is added to the ‘living-dining’ room (hiroma 広間) and bedroom (nema 寝間) that constitute the two-room layout type (ni-madori-gata 二間取り型). The zashiki is a somewhat formal room without an exact European counterpart, but the closest functional equivalents might be the drawing room or the parlour; unlike those now-defunct rooms, however, zashiki are still common enough in modern Japanese houses. With the addition of the zashiki, the separation of the main activities of daily life in minka was complete, and the three-room layout eventually became the basic or ‘standard’ minka layout.
A zashiki (座敷) in a modern house, with decorative alcove (toko-no-ma 床の間) on the left, Buddhist altar (butsudan 仏壇) on the right, and Shintо̄ shrine (kami-dana 神棚) above the lintel on the right.
In early examples and in lower-class dwellings, the decorative alcove (tokonoma 床の間) is often omitted from the zashiki, but in its place will be a Buddhist altar (butsudan 仏壇). In these dwellings, the primary purpose of the zashiki was to host religious activities, particularly Buddhist memorial services, and thus it functioned as a reception room for the most distinguished guest that could ever be expected to visit: the Buddhist priest. In this light, the advent of the zashiki can be seen as the architectural expression of a shift in Japanese society whereby it became common or acceptable practice for priests to visit the homes of ordinary commoners.
The most common subtype of the three-room layout is known as the hiroma-type three-room layout (hiroma-gata san-madori 広間型三間取り), in which a general-purpose room (the hiroma 広間) fully adjoins the utility-area doma (土間), which contains the dwelling entrance; both doma and hiroma run the full width of the house. At the ‘inner’ (oku 奥) or ‘upper’ (uemi-te 上み手) part of the interior, and ‘behind’ the hiroma from the point of view of one standing in the doma, are the other two rooms, the zashiki and the bedroom (nema 寝間); in other words, the hiroma-gata san-madori is a layout in which the ‘upper’ or rear part/room of a ‘longitudinal lineup’ type two-room layout (heiretsu-shiki ni-madori 並列式二間取り) is partitioned into ‘front’ and ‘back’ rooms, with the terms front and back being in relation to the entrance/façade, i.e. along the transverse axis.
Conceptualisation of space in a minka (the example here is a one-room dwelling). There are two axes: the ‘front - back’ axis, relative to the entry/facade of the building; and the ‘in - out’ axis, relative to the doma.
A hiroma-type three-room layout (hiroma-gata san-madori 広間型三間取り).
The general purpose room goes by many names: in addition to hiroma (ひろま or 広間, lit. ‘wide space’), it may be called the jо̄i (じょうい or 常居, lit. ‘regular location’), cha-no-ma (ちゃのま or 茶の間, lit. ‘tea space’), katte (かって or 勝手, lit. ‘win hand’, meaning ‘convenience’ in the sense of ‘at one’s own convenience’, by extension ‘living’ in the sense of ‘What do you do for a living?’ by extension ‘kitchen’), daidoko (だいどこ or 台所, lit. ‘platform place’, by extension ‘kitchen’), o-ue (おうえ, perhaps お上, lit. ‘honorary prefix + ‘upper’), oe (おえ) and oie (おいえ), both probably variants of o-ue, and naka-no-ma (なかのま or 中の間, lit. ‘middle space’). The first five names all hint in some way at the room’s use; the middle three indicate that the room is entered by going up (ue 上) into it after removing one’s footwear in the doma, and the last, nakanoma, points to the room’s position as the central space in the longitudinal lineup, between the doma and the two ‘upper’ rooms.
The hiroma is the largest room in the house, and at its heart; likewise, the square firepit (irori いろり or 囲炉裏) set into the hiroma floor is at the heart of core household activities: cooking, eating, family time, and hosting neighbours, relatives, and other familiar guests. Often a kami-dana (神棚, lit. ‘god shelf’), a kind of miniature Shintо̄ shrine, is enshrined in the hiroma, above the lintel (kamoi 鴨居) and behind the seating position of the master of the house. Every member of the household has a determined seating position at the irori, just as in the Ainu chise discussed in a previous post. It is thought that most early or primitive minka were one-room layouts with an irori; this room is the ‘root’ of subsequent partitions, with other rooms derived from it over successive generations.
An iron pot hanging over an irori. Like most irori in agricultural minka (nou-minka 濃民家), this one is wood-fueled. Since minka are without chimneys or even usually ‘smoke lanterns’ at the apex of the roof, the smoke from a wood fire can only escape through openings in the walls and by rising from the ceiling-less rooms into the roof space and then leaking out through the roof thatch. The interior is smoky, but not intolerably so. Over time, the timbers of the roof structure become almost black. The smoke is not without benefit: it functions to keep the thatch dry and fumigate it against rot and vermin. In urban townhouses (machiya 町家) with irori, charcoal (sumi 炭) was the fuel of choice.
The bedroom (shinshitsu 寝室) is the first of these rooms to be separated off from the hiroma, and is called variously the nando (なんど or 納戸, lit. ‘store door’), nema (ねま or 寝間, lit. ‘sleep space’), nedoko (ねどこ or 寝所, lit. ‘sleep place’), chо̄dai (ちょうだい, 帳台 or 帳代, lit. ‘curtain platform’), heya (へや or 部屋, ‘room’), and so on; its primary roles were as a room for the husband and wife, a bedroom, and a storage room for family valuables and possessions. Even in small, humble minka, the zashiki was in the main used for Buddhist memorial services (butsuji 仏事), and so this room is called the butsuma (ぶつま or 仏間, lit. ‘Buddha space’), bо̄sama zashiki (坊様座敷, lit. ‘monk/priest zashiki), kyūsoku-no-ma (出居の間, lit. ‘repose space’), dei (出居, lit. ‘go out location’), and so on. Dei is so named from the fact that the master goes out (出張る debaru or deharu, to go (out) for some formal or official purpose) of the jо̄i to receive the guest in the dei. Though in reality of course the zashiki was also used for other purposes, the fact that perhaps 25% of the raised-floor area of the house was dedicated to ceremonial practice somewhat contradicts the common notion that the Japanese are irreligious, and indicates the importance of religious observance and ancestor veneration in Japan, or in pre-modern Japan at least.