Eclectic Echoes

Gassho-Zukuri

Sled and Gassho-Zukuri
Originally uploaded by tsuda.

I have always loved the traditional Japanese farm house architecture. I loved finding this image at flickr of Shirakawa-go buried in snow by tsuda. Fortunately the Gassho-Zukuri of the Gifu Prefecture has been preserved in large part because of it’s identity as an important part of the Japanese cultural heritage. The village of Shirakawa-go in Gifu – made of mostly Gassho-Zukuri – was added to the World’s Heritage List in the mid 1990’s.

The steep pitched A-frame gable roofs are thickly thatched. Like much traditional architecture in Japan the construction is without nails, relying on the architecture of often complex joints and rope binding. The shape of the roof and it’s insulating materials are adaptations of the traditional Japanese farmhouse to the climate requirements of this region. The space in the roof – often divided into 2 or even more extra “floors” – were commonly used for sericulture. The spaces were well adapted to the labor and space intensive raising and processing of silk worms and the coccoons. The silk production was a very important part of these farmers’ income as it was work that could be continued through most of the year while farming in these areas was confined to a pretty short season.