Small Japanese shops (1/300)

[Viator]

Originally Posted by Don Boose

Until such time as Clare's hut is completed, perhaps we can all gather to talk and drink tea in the chashitsu in the back garden of Andrew's inbou [I THINK 印房 (いんぼう) is the right word for the little shop selling stamps and seals].

Don

Wow, I didn't know this. Thanks again!
I will be pleased very much even if we can meet only in dreams.
For the moment I have matcha isecha, sencha isecha and sencha yamecha and a rather large supply of genmaicha isecha which is my favorite blend.
Do help yourselves, please!

[Don Boose]

Okay. I will re-read Kawabata's A Thousand Cranes before we meet.

Incidentally, don't take my translation of "stamp and seal shop" to the bank. I will defer to Clare on language issues, as I am sure his Japanese is infinitely better than mine.

Don

[Viator]

Few Taisho period buildings (WIP)

After a period of modernization and "westernization" that stemmed from the Meiji Restoration, and before the Shōwa known as Shōwa Modan (Modern) period, there is a decade of Japanese history (and architecture) called the Taishō Era (1912 to 1926). Buildings from the Taishō period were beautifully built with a combination of western and traditional style, designed as traditional whole wooden structures but upgraded with the addition of the modern brick and stone facades, based mostly on British colonial buildings, thus merging tradition with modernism.

In the near future I'm going to recreate few Taishō-scented little shops, making their front parts after the street facades drawings and few photo images found in the Internet (they show very well the idea of the "merged architecture"), and the rear parts after the same models as my other "Little Edo" houses, shared earlier in this thread.

[Erik Zwaan]

This is interesting! I see similarities with the so-called Chinese shophouses in other parts of Southeast Asia, such as in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. Shop on the ground floor and living quarters on the first floor (or sometimes even on a third floor in case of a "two-storey shophouse"). They were mainly built in the first decades of the 20th century and also have been influenced by e.g. Art-Deco. In your last picture the influence of this movement in Japan is also evident.

Luckily nowadays these fine buildings are being preserved!

Cheers,
Erik

[Viator]

You are perfectly right, Erik, and the historians suppose that the Taishō style was derived from British inuflenced colonial architecture on the continent, mainly in China and Hong-Kong.

So, here you are the first "mixed styles" little shop, made after the first photo image from my previous post. The front (modern) part was made strictly after the original design, including the Art-Deco decorated details and the funny balcony on the right side wall. If I have read the signboard correctly, the owner was selling the furniture and equipments for shops. The roof however is a guess (I have no photos nor drawings, so I made it flat, which is not very probable) and the same for the other two walls of the modern part. The rear (traditional) part was made of the nets by Sakamoto-san, merging few buildings together to get a longer shape with few details added after the photo image (for example the vertical row of windows marking perhaps an internal staircase). I found the model rather complex and time-consuming but the result is more or less as I expected.

Inferring from the photo, maybe this house was built earlier as a traditional Edo/Meiji-style wooden structure and then supplemented with the front, masonry part (compare the line of the front facades of other old styled buildings to the left with the face of the wall of this shop - it is protruding from the whole quarter of houses - see the last sketch: the continuous red line shows the supposed original facade). The side walls were suited to the existing wooden walls, so they must be designed and built later. If not, there is no explanation why the masonry 1st floor side wall is "overhanged" over the shorter ground floor wall. In addition, the front 1st floor balcony (the same as in the neighbouring houses) was moved to the side wall.

(#80)

[Erik Zwaan]

Looking very good Andrew. Regarding the roof, perhaps Google Earth can provide a clue, if you at least know where the picture was taken. Likely the roof was slightly slanted for rain water drainage purpose I suppose.

Cheers,
Erik

[Viator]

I have no slightest idea what town/city is it.
I suppose the roof is simple shed roof sloping in the direction of the old roof between the parapet walls, or maybe it is a simple continuation of the old gabled roof with the gutters along the inner sides of parapet walls. But in any case there would be no parapet walls on the back wall (opposite to the street facade).

In the next building at least the edges of the roof tiles are visible on the photograph, so I will do it better.

[Erik Zwaan]

Taisho Roman Dori Street In Kawagoe, which is a part of Tokio. Look itvup in Google Earth, and view in 3D mode. Might be useful!

Erik

[Don Boose]

I like the Taishō buildings, which are uniquely Japanese, but with some resonances with 1920s American civic architecture (a lot of which survives here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and with, as Erik points out, Southeast Asian shops.

Don

[Viator]

Wow! Thanks, Erik! I will fly over the Kawagoe and check the roofs (in the Google Maps satellite view of course). I hope these buildings are still existing.

Don, thanks to your comments this thread becomes twice more informative and interesting!