Shinden-zukuri

Shinden-zukuri is a Japanese residential architectural style that emerged during the Heian period, between 794 and 1185, developing after Japan discontinued official missions to Tang China in 894 and cultivated an aesthetic distinct from Chinese influence known as kokufu bunka, or national culture. It was used mainly for the palaces and residences of the nobility and aristocratic families, peaking in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Its buildings featured an open structure with few walls, closed and opened with shitomi shutters and sudare blinds, elevated floors entered without shoes and covered with tatami mats rather than furniture, roofs of Japanese cypress bark rather than ceramic tile, and unpainted wooden pillars left in their natural texture. A shinden-zukuri mansion typically occupied a square plot of about one cho, roughly 109 meters to a side, with the central shinden, or sleeping quarters, facing south onto an open courtyard, flanked by two subsidiary tai-no-ya buildings running east to west and linked by corridors leading to a southern ceremonial courtyard, with wealthier aristocrats adding further buildings behind the main structures. The style declined as the samurai class gained power during the Kamakura period beginning in 1185, eventually giving way to the buke-zukuri and shoin-zukuri styles.