Shirakawa-go is a small community in a remote mountain area, about 500 meters above sea level. It was registered as a World Cultural Heritage site, along with another small community nearby called Gokayama, in 1995. Precisely speaking, three districts of these two communities are under registration, Ogimachi from Shirakawa-go, Suganuma and Ainokura from Gokayama. The farm houses in these districts have been preserved and alive. They look similar but a close look will soon tell you each is unique manifesting the locals’ wisdom and experience.
Shirakawa-go’s unique farm houses came to be known after Bruno Taut, a renowned German architect [1880-1938] described the Gassho-zukuri style in his book, Rediscovering Japanese Beauty. He stayed in Japan for over three years, traveling and rediscovering Japanese beauty. He came to Shirakawa-go in May, 1935. He praised the farm houses as architecturally rational and logical. He said that he had never seen the scenery like this in Japan. It rather looked like Switzerland or the illusion of Switzerland to him.
Gassho means a gesture of fitting the palms for prayer. People remember Shirakawa-go with these A-frame farm houses with extraordinarily large thatched roofs. The houses face the same direction but are laid out unaligned so that each house can let a nice river breeze come in and naturally out from the other side of the house, making the interior comfortable in summer.
The roofs face either west or east. This way, the sun equally lights both sides of the roof; this style adjusts summer heat and melts winter snow equally on either side of the roof. These rafter gabled roofs are steep enough to fit the meteorological conditions like heavy wet snow that people here have to deal with.
These houses, seen from a nearby hill, look neat and integrated. They stand in harmony and the community looks peaceful.
The villagers have formed an organization called Yui, meaning a cooperative system, helped each other build and mend the houses and roofs, and got together for the rituals conducted at local shrines. The first floor of these farm houses are professionally done by carpenters; while the upper floors by the villagers themselves. No nails or metal clamps are used to assemble the lumber. Instead, straw ropes or witch hazel branches fix the beams and pillars. This contributes to rust-free quality and earth-quake resistance of the houses.
One hundred fifty to two hundred villagers cooperate to renew the thatched roof. The high-quality thatch and the sunken hearth used every day kept the roofs for as long as 50 years. Now they last shorter due to the lack of good thatch and no daily use of the sunken hearth.
On the first floor is a sunken hearth, the smoke from which reaches the upper floors. The thatches, ropes, and other building materials, covered with soot rising from the hearth, become dry and bug-resistant. The lattice board, hanging over the hearth, blocks flying sparks and disperse the heat and smoke.
The houses were both for living and working. Daily activities were conducted on the first floor and the upper floors were used for storage and sericulture. The large triangular form with windows on either side of the house allows the wind and light to come in, creating the proper environment for sericulture.
Last but not least which has to be mentioned are the holes beneath the floor, where saltpeter was made by leaving the mixture of soil, grass, and human urine for three to four years, to eventually produce gun-powder, once a major source of income.
More than 100 traditional houses still stand here and are dwelled by owners and their families. Otherwise the houses would look dead. They are all living houses and a few of them are about 300 years old. Their challenge since the WCH registration has been: how they protect their private lives, while greeting visitors with open hearts.
