A little of each town’s story

Kyomachiya, the Kyoto townhouse

From: An ordinary morning in a hundred-year-old Kyoto townhouse

The open well of beams, with a bare bulb

Under Kyoto City's ordinance, a kyomachiya is a wooden building of traditional structure and form built before 1950, when the Building Standards Act came into force. Its origins go back to the mid-Heian period, when people who came to the capital to make and sell things built small houses facing the avenues and lanes; the form seen today took shape in the mid-Edo period. The tori-niwa, an earthen passage running from the street to the back garden, and the hibukuro, the open well above it, provide ventilation and light, and keep a fire from the stove from spreading to other rooms. The tsuboniwa, a small inner garden, brings light and air into the long, narrow house. The number of kyomachiya fell from 47,735 in 2008-09 to 34,580 in fiscal 2024, with about 800 lost every year.

Sources: kyomachiya.city.kyoto.lg.jp kyomachiya.city.kyoto.lg.jp

This moment in the journey

Hibukuro and tsuboniwa: old wisdom in the walls

I ate at the table by the window: an iron kettle and mandarins on a red flowered tablecloth, soft light coming through the shoji screens.

The kyomachiya, I learned, has its roots in the mid-Heian period, when people who came to the capital to make and sell things built small houses facing the avenues and lanes. The form we see today took shape in the mid-Edo period. Above the kitchen rises the hibukuro, an open well of space that lets heat and smoke escape, and that keeps a fire from the stove from spreading to the other rooms. The tsuboniwa, a small inner garden, brings light and air deep into a house that is long and narrow.

In this house's garden, an iron pot catches rainwater under a chain of rain cups, and bamboo stirs beside it. Looking up, I found a single bare bulb hanging in the open well of beams and ties. An elegant house, filled with the wisdom of people who wanted to live comfortably.

Watch this scene on YouTube0:56

Read this scene in the full journey