◆Narrow Frontage and Large Depth◆

  The street view is made of the rows of houses along the Kaido road.
  The Town-House has a narrow frontage and a large depth. Usually the frontage-side faces the street and the depth-side stands in right angle with the street.

  In the Stage-Town along Kaido road the width of the frontage-side was a very precious resource, then it had quite big property-value.
  Therefore the property-value of the house in the town, as the base of tax-imposement by the government, was estimated in proportion to the width of the frontage. The frontage facing the street in the town was the rare resource.
  The architecture of the Town-House was developped in order to distribute the rare resource among as many people as possible, as well as in order to restrain the amount of tax on individual family.

  But on the oher hand they needed the room for receiving the guests, commercial negotiation, the management, or commodities storage or so. Of course they needed the room for living.
  Thus the form of the Town-House was invented.

◆The Device for Life◆

  But there were diversities of the frontage-width among merchants' houses owing to their properties or business-types. The houses of prosperous merchants of big business scale had the larger frontage-width within a certain limit.

  Moreover the rich merchants introduced some devices into their houses for comfortable conditions.
  The typical one is Tsubo-niwa, i.e. the tiny square garden which was incorporated into the house-plan with consideration about the mental balance.

  Tsubo-niwa is the unique micro-garden which is set within a large house of a prosperous merchant. It is the exposed ground in the squrae-shape of 3-7 m², on which trees and/or grass are planted. The garden is usually surounded by the wooden veranda.
  Looking at the garden from the kitchen or the living room, people may find the green leaves and feel calm.

  Such a house-plan is adapted to many houses of rich merchants' in Kyoto or Kanazawa. But it is very special in the town enclosed by the deep mountains.
  There is a tiny square garden in the house of Kami-don-ya, the Tezukas family, which is exhibited as a museum. It is wonderful. The owner has made much effort to maintain the house and the garden.