List of partitions of traditional Japanese architecture

Traditional Japanese architecture uses post-and-lintel structures – vertical posts, connected by horizontal beams. Rafters are traditionally the only structural member used in Japanese timber framing that is neither horizontal nor vertical. The rest of the structure is non-load-bearing.

While fixed walls are used, a variety of movable partitions are also used to fill the spaces between the pillars. They may be free-standing, hung from lintels, or, especially in later buildings, sliding panels which can readily be removed from their grooves. Their type, number, and position is adjusted according to the weather without and the activities within. They are used to modify the view, light, temperature, humidity, and ventilation, and to divide the interior space.Formal Audience Hall (Shoin)
Interview with Matthew Welch, Curator of Japanese and Korean Art

The timbers are called , the space between them ; thus the items filling the are termed equipment.

Pictorial overview

File:Saikū Historical Museum - Display item04 - The palace of Saiô - Miniature model.jpg, Museum model of the Saikū, the Saiō's palace. An inner square room with plaster walls contains a sleeping canopy; a second inner room with wall-curtains contains folding screens; the far outer wall shows horizontally-hinged shutters, and near outer wall has blinds. screens stand in the near side of the outer corridor, and in the short sides of the same corridor.
File:Saikū Historical Museum - Display item05 - The room of Saiô.jpg, A full-scale model of part of the same palace. The Saiō sits on a tatami dais, with a behind her, a to her left, and a boxlike to her right. Above and before her, a is rolled and tied up. Museum reconstruction of the Heian period's Shinden style.
File:Genji emaki Kashiwagi.JPG, An 1100s (late Heian period) illustration, showing a bound in green cloth (rolled, above), a grey with multicoloured streamers (half of it tied up behind the hung from the same lintel), three (two white with black streamers, and one orange with multicolour streamers), a (right), and (right rear, matching ).
File:Sumiyoshi monogatari emaki, Tokyo, 2.jpg, Transition from Shinden style to Shoin style. Between the young man and the seated nun, sliding ; behind them, non-sliding . On the young man's side, shutters, horizontally split, the upper half held up by hooks; on the nun's side, diagonally-planked sliding . Behind the young man speaking with the maidservant, similar non-sliding panels.
File:150425 Ishitani Residence Chizu Tottori pref Japan32s3.jpg, Sukiya style, early 20th century. , , , and plaster walls visible. The use large single glass panes, which would have been extremely expensive before float glass became available in the 1960s.
File:Imperial Throne of Shishinden in Kyoto Imperial Palace.jpg, Throne on display in the Kyoto Imperial Palace; from outside inwards, blue-bound blinds, pillar slots for shutters (currently removed), white (wall-curtains) caught up with red-and-black ties, and (canopy and dais, in red and purple). Older styles often persist in rare ceremonial use.

By type

Hanging

Free-standing

Sliding ()

Fixed (walls)

See also

*JAANUS; free online Japanese architectural dictionary
*

Notes

References

{{reflist

Japanese architectural features
Partitions in traditional Japanese architecture