A small enclosed room in a large *shoin 書院 style structure built in the Muromachi and early Edo periods.
An example survives in the Ni-no-maru Goten 二の丸御殿 at Nijōjō 二条城 in Kyoto (ca. 1624-26). At Nijōjō, each of the main halls—Tōzamurai 遠侍, Ōhiroma 大広間, Kuroshoin 黒書院, Shiroshoin 白書院—has a chōdai-no-ma, and in each case, it is the smallest and plainest room in the building. The rooms are enclosed on three sides by other rooms and have very few openings. The main entry in each case takes the form of an elaborate ornamental doorway *chōdaigamae 帳台構え, with a raised threshold and a pair of single sliding door *katabikido 片引戸 with flanking panels *sodekabe 袖壁. The chōdaigamae are set in the side wall of the most prestigious room in the structure, the jōdan-no-ma 上段の間 (see *jōdan 上段) or dais, where the lord sat when giving an audience. The only other entry to the chōdai-no-ma was from the broad veranda *hiro-en 広縁. It is said that guards were hidden in the chōdai-no-ma to foil assassination attempts on the lord during an audience (there is no proof of this but the equivalent room beyond the chōdaigamae in the early 17th-century Shinden 寝殿 at Daigoji Sanbōin 醍醐寺三宝院 is called Mushakakushi-no-ma 武者隠しの間, or the room for concealing warriors).
By the 17th century, it was no longer used for sleeping by members of the ruling class, but there is no doubt that the chōdai-no-ma evolved from the master's sleeping room, and that its origins are in the *chōdai 帳台. In some other shoin style structures of comparable date, the equivalent space is called *nando 納戸.