Also called inrōtsugi 印籠継. A simple blind or half-blind stub tenon joint. A blind tenon, mechigaihozo 目違ほぞ…

A roofed passageway that runs from front to back in a long building. One example separates the *…

Lit. "female tile." Also called migawara. Also written 雌瓦, or 牝瓦. A 7-12th century term for a broad concave roof…

Tile fragments used to strengthen earthen kilns and mud fences.

Also called shitagi 下木. The indented part of a wooden joint. It functions like a mortise *…

Lanterns at shrines and temples which have come to be known as historically or aesthetically important.

Also mikakushibei 見隠塀. From mekakushi or mikakushi. Lit. "fence hidden from the eyes or…

A type of iron clamp 8 to 15 cm long that allows a top framing beam *uchinorinuki…

Blind mullions. Mullions that are set so closely together that what is behind them cannot be seen. Some blind mullions are…

Also called nemurimeji 眠目地. A butt or closed joint, where pavement stones abut so seamlessly that they appear to be…

Also written 面板. The flat faces of a board. The flat faces of the boards between the narrow horizontal strips *…

Also read as tsura, which means the surface or face of a structural member.

1　The chamfer…

Possibly a corruption of medo 目処. A gap between two things. A board used to cover or fill a gap is called mendo…

Filler or gap-fill tiles used to close or plug the openings along the base of the main ridge *…

Also menkawa 面皮. A pillar or post *hashira 柱, rafter *…

The curved base of a bearing block.

The general term for the relationship between the *tatami 畳 mat binding and…

Also pronounced mendori. The chamfered or beveled edge of a pillar, post, piece of furniture, piece of latticework…

A square post or pillar with chamfered corners.

A special plane used to cut bevelled corners. A shooting board, that serves as a guide, is attached to a small smoothing…

Also mendō 眠堂. Sleeping quarters for the head priest behind the main room at a subsidiary Zen temple *…

Lit. "husband and wife windows"; double windows. A type of window used in a tea ceremony house *…

A type of bamboo-ear gate takehogaki 竹穂垣 used for projecting fences *sodegaki…

The meeting of two structural elements that butt together. Examples include sliding doors *…

Lit. "eye-gap door." A simple informal door that is composed of horizontal lattice yokogōshi 横格子 set fairly widely…

Lit. "eye-fastening post." Also mitsukibashira 見付柱; sumibashira 隅柱. A guide post. The corner post at the…

Also keshō-ita 化粧板. A flat, sheathing board attached to the underside of the eaves of a wooden dwelling. The…

A ceiling plan drawn exactly in relation to the floor plan, i.e., viewed as if a person were lying on his back looking…

Also written 御舎. The emperor's palace or dwellings of the upper class in the proto-historic and early historic periods. The…

1　Another name for a temple called Hōjōji 法成寺, built at the end of the tenth to beginning of the 11th…

Lit. "hidden from sight."

1　A structural member, part of which is not visible because it is inserted…

Lit. "image hall." Also called eidō 影堂, goeidō or goedō 御影堂. A temple hall explicitly assigned to…

The term for steps constructed at the center front of two important imperial palace buildings in Kyoto Gosho 京都御所, the…

Also read mitsubashira torii or called sankakutorii 三角鳥居. A gate-like structure *…

A style of architecture found at Miho Jinja 美保神社 in Shimane Prefecture. Two shrine buildings in the taisha style *…

1　A surface of a Japanese architectural component that faces front.

2　Endpaper,…

A generic name for granite kakōgan 花崗岩, the term originally meant granite quarried in the Mikage 御影 district in the…

Also mikawa 御溝. Ditches surrounding each building in the Imperial Palace. The present palace, Kyoto Gosho 京都御所, has…

Also pronounced mikedono. A daily offering hall at a shrine. The most important example is in the northeast corner…

Also written 神輿宿. Also mikoshigura 神輿倉, or shin'yoko 神輿庫. A storehouse for a portable shrine *…

Also pronounced mikuriya. A building or kitchen where food and drink are prepared to offer to the gods. For…

Lit. "ear stone." Also called sode-ishi 袖石, tsuma-ishi 妻石. Stone string or stringer. Stones placed…

Also called miminuki 耳貫, *enmimi-ita 縁耳板. A finishing board…

A gate located south of the santuary Honden 本殿 at Kibitsu Jinja 吉備津神社 in Okayama prefecture. Images of two defied loyal…

The gates on the south side of Ise Jingū 伊勢神宮. They are large eight-legged gates *…

Also read minatoshi. Paper pasted from the edge of *tatami 畳 to at…

1　A dialect variant of *mizuya 水屋, used in the Edo period to designate an…

A general term for vernacular dwellings of the ancient, medieval, or premodern periods, or rebuilt in the style of the…

Also written 蓑建仁寺垣. Also called takehogaki 竹穂垣. A variation of the bamboo fence *…

Also called sanjūnoki 三重軒. Lit. "three eaves." An arrangement of three sets of rafters that support the eaves. The…

A drooping verge needed on buildings with gable style *kirizuma-zukuri…

Roof tiles that are placed along the drooping verges; that is, tiles that extend beyond edges of the gables.

A thick, penetrating tie beam about 6 cm wide used to reinforce the doors of storehouses *…

A decorative strut which is shaped like a plectrum used for playing the shamisen 三味線. The strut is capped with a…

A Buddhist hall dedicated to *Miroku 弥勒 (Sk: Maitreya), the compassionate bodhisattva of…

Also pronounced tana.

1　Abbreviation of *misedana 見世棚.
…

Also written 店棚.

1　A small-scale shop in the mediaeval period. Known from the late Heian…

Also written 店棚造. Also dashimise-zukuri 出し店造. A very small shrine building, one bay wide, within the precincts of a…

The front part of the earthen-floored area *doma 土間, in urban vernacular…

A shop constructed using the fireproof system of construction known as *dozō-zukuri…

The space outside the front part of the earthern-floored area *doma 土間 of…

Lit. "beyond the shop." A term used most commonly in the Kinai 畿内 district and Kii 紀伊 (Wakayama Prefecture), during the Edo…

An honorific word for *sudare 簾. Bamboo blinds that are used in shrines,…

A variation on the usual style of opaque sliding partitioning screen *fusuma …

Also sudaregaki 簾垣. A bamboo fence made of various kinds of slender bamboo strips that are set horizontally and…

A place to one side of the approach to a Shinto shrine where visitors perform purification rites, including rinsing the…

Lit. "re-used-object water basins." A type of water basin *chōzubachi…

Sometimes called mitesakigumi 三手先組. A three-stepped-bracket complex composed of three projecting sets of bracket…

One of the ceremonies performed at the time of shrine construction when the doors of the main shrine building are hung. At…

Structural elements found within the same plane, or positioned in a straight line.

Lit. "three-flowered bargeboard pendant." A decorative gable pendant *gegyo…

A decorative gable pendant *gegyo 懸魚 covering the ends of purlins in a gable…

Also called mitsudogumi 三斗組 or mitsudo-zukuri 三斗造. A 3-on-1 bracket complex. It carries a wall purlin and…

Also mitsuki 見附.

1　A structural member, or a part of one, seen from the front. For…

Also called mitsumoya osame 三母屋納; mitsumoya-zukuri 三母屋造. The location or positioning of the base of a…

Also referred to as mitsumune-zukuri 三棟造. Lit. "three ridges." This type of construction is found chiefly in single…

A three-fold door. A door that has two sections, each of which has three leaves. The outer leaf is hinged to the middle leaf…

Also called mitsutorii 三鳥居 or sankō torii 三光鳥居. An entrance gate to a Shinto shrine comprised of three…

1　A gate originally used exclusively by the emperor. It had two main pillars and…

Also known as shakuriganna 决鉋. A plane used exclusively for making grooves in a doorsill or lintel. If the width of…

Also mizuguruwa 水郭. A castle compound *kuruwa 郭 built to protect…

One of the trump stones for used in a wash-basin group *hachimae-no-ishigumi…

Lit. "water hole." The hollowed-out space on the top face of a water basin *…

A water-filled moat. Dry or empty moats are called *karabori 空堀.

Firefly lantern type. An example of this small lantern can be seen near the edge of the boat dock at Katsura Rikyū 桂離宮 in…

Lit. "water boat." A type of large boat-shaped stone used for water basins *mitatemono…

A small edge raised slightly to the left of the right edge an eave-end tile *…

Also written 籬垣, 水垣. A fence. Originally, mizugaki referred to a fence composed of trees surrounding a forest or…

Also read mizukoshi shōji ; also called koshinashi shōji 腰無障子, mizu-itashōji 水板障子. The framework…

Also read mizukuri. A narrow opening cut out of the lower most beam of a balustrade *…

The rainbow beam *kōryō 虹梁 that is set between the pillars at the front of a…

The barrel part *dō 胴, of a half-round roofing tile *…

Lit. "water fortification." A dike constructed in the low-lying land between two mountains and filled with water to create a…

Also called mizutare kōbai 水垂勾配, mizutorikōbai 水取勾配, mizutori 水取. A roof that has a pitch and…

One of the group of trump stones *yaku-ishi 役石 placed around…

Also mizutsubo 水壷. Lit. "a water jar." A container of fresh water used either to fill the tea bowl *…

A small shelf unit with side boards that have an openwork *sukashibori…

1　A part of the emperor's residential compound Dairi 内裏 in the Imperial Palace, Kyoto Gosho 京都御所. The…

The lower or front end of the barrel part *dō 胴, of a half-round…

A type of small built-in cabinet of the *mizuyadana 水屋棚 style placed in the wall of a tea…