Japanese Kura-zukuri houses

The Japanese house was traditionally built of wood, and because of that, during the medieval times, the Japanese towns were continuously in a danger of fire. In order to better protect the food and the most valuable objects, next to the wealthier homes there was also a store house called kura, built of thick, fire resistant plaster.

In some towns, the kura construction technique, called kura-zukuri, was adopted for other types of buildings, too. In Kawagoe, not far from Tokyo, all the stores and town houses were built in the kura-zukuri style, and fortunately many of them were preserved until today as they were at the end of the Edo period...