Keywords
Architecture
Folk Dwellings
Fire towers. Timber-framed watchtowers erected during the Edo period in large cities to enable fires to be located when they broke out, and their progress monitored. In Edo there is said to have been one about every ten blocks. They were about 9 m high, and the frame was constructed around four earth-fast posts *hottatebashira 掘立柱, canted slightly inward. At the top of the posts was constructed a platform about one *tsubo 坪 (2 m x 2 m) in area, with a railing and a roof of shingles or bark *doibuki 土居葺. The posts were set in the earth to a depth of about 1 m, and diagonal bracing was used to give the frame greater stability.