SHORT FILMS
Hashirama Sōchi: Equipment in Between

Hashirama sōchi  (intercolumn device) is a term used in Japanese architecture to describe the window-like elements that occupy the gaps between columns: from walls to shōji (sliding paper doors) or tatami mats on floors.

As part of Japan House London’s current exhibition ‘Windowology: New Architectural Views from Japan’, we invite visitors to explore the work that has been conducted as part of YKK AP's research since 2014 through a series of short films highlighting the key concept of hashirama sōchi  in three different architectural studies.

Developed by architectural historian Nakatani Narihito (Waseda University), these films document the architectural behaviour of these intercolumnar elements and how their transition between different circumstances (open/closed, day/night, etc.) may have influence on the spaces in a building.

The Birth Canal

Depicting the process of the Sannō Festival held annually at Hiyoshi Taisha, a Shinto shrine located at the foot of Mt. Hiei in Shiga Prefecture, this video highlights how the rituals performed in the festival are deeply related to the spaces created by columns.

A City of Columns

This short film focuses on the study of one of the few remaining Nagaya neighbourhoods in Osaka and explores the culture and design of this type of housing style which flourished in early modern Japan.

Transition of Kikugetsutei

Kikugetsutei is a teahouse located within the Ritsurin Garden in the city of Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture. Selected for showing at the 2018 International Film Festival Rotterdam, this video captures the changes that the building undergoes over the course of a day.

A viewing of all three films together lasts approximately 45 minutes.

Japan House London is a COVID-secure venue and our staff continue to wear face coverings. Although guests are no longer required by UK Government regulations to wear a mask, we encourage them to do so for the consideration of others. Please visit our COVID-19 webpage for more information on our continuing measures we have implemented to ensure your safety.

The exhibition ‘Windowology: New Architectural Views from Japan' is on display on the Lower Ground Floor of Japan House London from 1 December 2021 until 10 April 2022.

Profile: Nakatani Narihito

Professor, Department of Architecture, Waseda University, Nakatani Narihito is an architectural historian noted for a variety of activities. These include studying the writings of early-modern-era carpentry, and the continuity of land characteristics and their influence on the present day (theory of pre-existence); overseeing a project to document change, by revisiting the houses that the Japanese “modernologist” Kon Wajirō visited in the early 20th century and more recently, travelling along the edge of Eurasia plate, researching villages that have existed for a thousand years. His publications include Future Commune (inscript, 2019), Moving Earth and Shape of Living: Travelling along the edge of Eurasia plate (Iwanami shoten, 2017), Revisiting Kon Wajirō’s “Japanese Houses” (as part of the Rekiseikai group, Heibonsha, 2012), Severalness+: The Cycle of Things and Human Beings (Kajima Shuppankai, 2011), and The Study of Classical Literature, the Meiji Period, and Architects (Ikki Shuppan, 1993). In 2013, Nakatani received the Kon Wajirō Award by the Japan Society of Lifology and the Writer’s Award by the Architectural Institute of Japan.