Customer Reviews

The Japanese House: Architecture and Interiors

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am a man that lives in Tokyo, the metropolitan of Japan. Recently in about thirty years, Japanese living styles have changed extremely, that is, the styles are getting to be foreign styles, the windows: not Syouji, tables: not Tyabudai, floorings: not tatami and so on. Especially in big city like Tokyo, Oosaka and Nagoya the tendency is plain. Though there will be the many reasons that recent Japan have gotten to be such situations, recent Japanese especially young men may wish such cool design like European style, for instance, a data was reported a few years ago, the length of foots per over-all body height of Japanese students have gotten to be long, some specialists of the genre say that the cause will be that young men use chairs of styles that stretch their legs, not the Seiza style that have existed from long ago. Off course the cause may be by other aspects like abundant foods. But I approve about the opinion of specialists too.

Certainly though the old Japanese living styles are disappearing in big cities, if we go to local towns or villages, there will be many traditional style house. Now, some people (especially the adults over 40 years old) who are living in big cities like Tokyo lived and sent in such traditional house style of local towns for their boys or girls age. After all when they got to be about 20 years old, they went out from the towns and went to Tokyo etc because they yearned for the fashions or convenience of Tokyo.

They become businessmen, when they take long vacations of summer or new-year some of them go back to their towns or villages of their home countries. And they say then "the most comfortable place is my hometown and house after all". Off course the their saying may be because they are released from daily stress like hard working, but I think that another reason exists, that is, Japanese traditional house styles may give the influences to such feeling.
For instance, when they see garden (Teien) they will be calm, that is not always the scenery, though foreigners do not know about that, Tatami generates slight natural smell because Tatami is made from grass (Igusa). So when they sleep by Futon style on Tatami directly (not bed style in many cases of local town), they feel the slight smell from Tatami, and feel nostalgia as if they go back to their child age.

Since I have been in Tokyo from my birth, unfortunately I have not the local hometown like them. But I feel the smell of Tatami, am very calm down.

I felt that should cherish the old styles as Japanese too.

Thank you for reading poor English.

Awesome book that is proving to be very helpful as we design and get ready to build a very "Zen Danish" style home that isn't at all the cluttered American styled home. And I love the photos that demonstrate how to have things..and have them out of site. And I simply love the clean open style of the homes which is also what we are looking for.

This is a book for those who are sincerely interested in authentic Japanese home design, and not for someone who want a bit of Japanese in their American home!

Ranks with "Japanese Style" in terms of capturing the beauty of Japanese aesthetic in interior and architectural detail. Houses depicted were of various periods, mostly traditional, and were actual homes as lived in today. Also, rooms display art, screens, indigo fabric and ikibana in real setting.

Have too many empty rooms? Than this is the book for you. I will agree that this book was beautiful and interesting in historic architectural aspect, but if you are looking to incorporate some asian design themes into your current residence, I wouldn't recommend it. I found this book to be many examples of the same thing - an almost empty room with a screened doorway. There were some interesting gardens, but unless you are actually planning on throwing away all of your furniture (or you don't have any yet) I found it not very beneficial. Nothing wrong with this book - but felt it necessary to point this out to potential buyers as the book is appropriately pricey and the ideas hard to adapt to an already western home.

Don't expect much content in textual form. The book is a photo book, and there are many excellent pictures of japanese houses and interiors in terms of themes and photographical skill.

What is totaly contradictory to this, is the poor low-budget color printing chosen by Tuttle publishers. The pictures are devaluated by a easily seen coarse printing sreen.

If you ever have visited Japan or fell in love with its architecture via movies or television, you owe it to yourself to get this book.

We plan on building our next home and wanted to go in a modern/Japanese look. There are many resources out there for modern homes but very few done as well as this book for Japanese homes. The subtle details and construction techniques presented in here are vital for a designer to see as they develop a design.

The photographs are very endearing and present the Japanese home in such a way as to make this book more than just a guide. It also makes for a great coffee table book.

If you are into architecture of any type you shouldn't pass this book up for your library.

Highly recommended!

Thank you for reading my review.

Book has many different design themes all with first rate photography to inspire anyone considering a remodel or who just has an appreciation of Japanese architecture.

This book is awesome! For anyone interested in decorating in a traditional Japanese style, as I was, or just an admirer of Japanese culture, this book is a MUST HAVE!

Beautiful pictures and enough detail written to explain why things are designed the way they are...

I bought this book for my son, who is an architect very into Japanese style, but it was so beautiful, I almost kept it for myself and bought him another one. It's wonderful, buy it.

It is a good book but I would have liked to see more samples of houses to have a more complete overview of how the Japanese architecture has evolved over the years.