nema　寝間

KEY WORD :　architecture / folk dwellings

A room for sleeping in vernacular houses *minka 民家 of the Edo period. In many cases it was used also for the storage of valuables and clothes, and as a dressing room. Usually situated toward the rear of the house and often accessible from the kitchen *daidokoro 台所. In the early Edo period it was a dark enclosed space, with few or no windows and a single rather small entry. The entry often took the form of a single sliding door *katabikido 片引き戸, with a low lintel *kamoi 鴨居, and sometimes a raised threshold *shikii 敷居, an arrangement called *choudaigamae 帳台構え. The main nema (it was the only one if the house was small), was usually reserved for the master of the house and his wife. In a large minka, however, there might be several such rooms, some of them little larger than cupboards, for the use of dependents. Often they were incorporated into the peripheral zone *geya 下屋.

REFERENCES:

*choudai 帳台, *nando 納戸, *heya 部屋, *nedoko 寝床

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NOTES:

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