焔Maison HomuraShop
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三 · Wood — Inami, Toyama

Ranma

Two rooms have to share it, so it is carved through — from both sides.

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Ranma — Inami, Toyama
Inami, Toyama · Carvers at Inami since 1763

A ranma is the pierced panel above the sliding doors, in the gap between the lintel and the ceiling. It is there so that light and air can pass between two rooms that are otherwise shut off from one another.

Which sets the problem that makes the craft. The panel belongs to both rooms at once. It is seen from both sides, so it must be carved from both sides — one thick board of keyaki or paulownia, cut clean through and modelled front and back, with no reverse to hide the working in. There is no good side and no bad side. A carver who is weak on the far face is simply found out by the people in the next room.

Ranma — from the left
From the left

None on the shelf right now. We find these one at a time. Leave your email and we will write the day a Ranma arrives — nothing else.

On the shelf now, from other workshops

Not this story's piece: new work from Japan's workshops that can be ordered today.

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Pieces like this come and go, and most of what the house finds never goes online.

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How it works
  1. Write to the house. A person in Fukuoka replies, usually within a day or two.
  2. When a piece is agreed, the house sends you a private payment link, and you pay by card.
  3. It ships from Japan.

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Pick a budget and who it is for — that is enough. We write back with photographs, condition and a price.

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Ranma — at the workshop
At the workshop
How it is made
  1. 木取りKidori

    One board of keyaki or kusunoki, thick enough to carve through.

  2. 下絵Shita-e

    The design is drawn straight onto the wood, both faces.

  3. 荒彫りAra-bori

    Waste is cut out. From here the board cannot be mended.

  4. 仕上げ彫りShiage-bori

    Undercut so the panel reads from both rooms it divides.

Inami in Toyama is where the best of them come from, and the reason is a fire. In 1763 the main hall of Zuisen-ji, the temple at the centre of the town, burned down. Carver-carpenters were sent from the Higashi Hongan-ji in Kyoto to rebuild it, and they taught the local men while they worked. Then they left, and the town kept carving.

They still work with something like two hundred chisels and no machine on the finishing cuts, in workshops that open straight onto the street. You hear Inami before you see it.

Ranma are quietly disappearing — not because anyone stopped liking them, but because houses stopped having the shape that needs one. Panels now come out of houses being pulled down and go to dealers. What was a piece of architecture becomes a piece of sculpture, which is a demotion dressed up as a promotion.

Ranma — from the right
From the right
Walk around it
Ranma — FrontRanma — LeftRanma — BackRanma — Right
Notes
Where it sits
Between the lintel and the ceiling
Carved
Right through, worked from both faces
Wood
One board — keyaki, hinoki, paulownia
Inami
Carvers since the rebuilding of 1763
About the place

A single street of workshops, all of them open to the pavement, all of them carving. The reason is a fire: in 1763 the main hall of Zuisen-ji burned, carver-carpenters came from the Higashi Hongan-ji in Kyoto to rebuild it, and they taught the local carpenters while the work went on. Then they went home. Inami did not stop.

Inami · Woodcarving — transoms and lion heads →Ask us to find one →The Middle and the Snow Coast · By region →

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