Shoji

A shoji (障（しょう）子（じ）, Japanese pronunciation: [ɕo:(d)ʑi]) is a door, window or room divider used in traditional Japanese architecture, consisting of translucent (or transparent) sheets on a lattice frame. Where light transmission is not needed, the similar but opaque fusuma is used^[1] (oshiire/closet doors, for instance^[2]). Shoji usually slide, but may occasionally be hung or hinged, especially in more rustic styles.^[3]

Shoji are very lightweight, so they are easily slid aside, or taken off their tracks and stored in a closet, opening the room to other rooms or the outside.^[4][5][6] Fully traditional buildings may have only one large room, under a roof supported by a post-and-lintel frame, with few or no permanent interior or exterior walls; the space is flexibly subdivided as needed by the removable sliding wall panels.^[7] The posts are generally placed one tatami-length (about 2 m or 6 ft) apart, and the shoji slide in two parallel wood-groove tracks between them.^[8] In modern construction, the shoji often do not form the exterior surface of the building; they sit inside a sliding glass door or window.^[5]

Shoji are valued for not setting a sharp barrier between the interior and the exterior; outside influences such as the swaying silhouettes of trees, or the chorus of frogs, can be appreciated from inside the house.^[9] As exterior walls, shoji diffuse sunlight into the house; as interior partitions between rooms, they allow natural light deep into the interior. While shoji block wind, they do allow air to diffuse through,^[9] important when buildings were heated with charcoal.^[5] Like curtains, shoji give visual privacy,^[4][7] but they do not block sounds.^[4][10] Shoji are also thought to encourage a home's inhabitants to speak and move softly, calmly, and gracefully, an important part of the ethos behind sukiya-zukuri architecture.^[9] Sliding doors cannot traditionally be locked.^[10]

Shoji rose in popularity as an integral element of the shoin-zukuri style, which developed in the Kamakura Period (1123–1333), as loss of income forced aristocrats into more modest and restrained architecture.^[11] This style was simplified in teahouse-influenced sukiya-zukuri architecture,^[12] and spread to the homes of commoners in the Edo Period (1603–1868), since which shoji have been largely unchanged.^[4] Shoji are used in both traditional-style Japanese houses and in Western-style housing, especially in the washitsu (traditional Japanese-style room).^[8][13] The traditional wood-and-paper construction is highly flammable.^[14]