An exploration of Japanese architecture might well begin with the explanations of the wide variety of traditional styles -- temple, shrine, teahouse, rural farmhouse, urban townhouse, castle, aristocratic mansion -- provided in a series of nicely illustrated articles found at Japanese Architecture in Kansai, a site maintained by KANSAI WINDOW. Although focused on the plains area in south-central Honshu where the cities of Kyoto and Osaka can be found, the series covers all the major architectural types one is likely to encounter in the traditional built environment.

Miwa Hiroshi's article on "The History and Future of Wooden Architecture in Kansai", for example, provides a good comprehensive overview examining the extensive use of wood as a building material in traditional Japan.

Interestingly, the same topic is considered in an article written for the Swiss Asia Foundation by Marc Tabacchi and Lionel Jacquod entitled "Why Wood - a Research Project on Wood Construction in Japanese Architecture".

Other articles on The KANSAI WINDOW site center on minka (farmhouses), the tea room sukiya style, castle precincts, and machiya urban townhouses. There are discussions, too, of the measurements and tools used in traditional building construction as well as lists of famous castles and preserved traditional buildings found throughout the region. Major examples of Buddhist temple architecture at Horyuji (the oldest wooden building in the world), Todaiji (the largest wooden building in Japan) and Toji (which houses Japan's tallest pagoda) are also described.

A brief overview of several forms of traditional architecture can be found on the ThinkQuest site, The Art of Japan, developed by Chris McFall, Ben Meyers, and Andrew Miller of Palo Alto, California. Kevin Matthews and Artifice, Inc. provide information about five major examples of traditional architecture on their Traditional Japanese Architecture web site.

A course web site from Cornell University on "Elements, Principles, and Theories in Japanese Architecture" contains a database illustrating a wide variety of traditional architectural types with diagrams, photographs and drawings in thumbnail view which can then be enlarged to show useful details. Likewise the Kansai Digital Archives houses a database preserving pictorial examples of historical architecture found in some eighteen different towns and cities in the Kansai plains area of south-central Honshu.

Brief illustrated introductions to major examples of traditional Kyoto area religious and secular architecture can be found at a site maintained by the Leo Masuda Architectronic Research Office. Seventeen World Cultural Heritage sites in the vicinity of the ancient capital of Kyoto (many of architectural importance and interest) are illustrated and discussed on a KYOTOday site maintained by the Kyoto Prefectural Office Department of Planning and the Environment.

More detailed considerations can be found in Jiro Harada's online collection of articles and lectures entitled "A Glimpse of Japanese Ideals". Chapter Four, for example, deals specifically with forms of traditional Japanese architecture.

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