Machiya as Cultural Crossroads
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The Role of Chōnaikai
The Role of Chōnaikai
Following the city’s original morphology—later altered by the devastation of the Ōnin War (1467–1477)—Kyōto’s urban society developed around the chōnaikai (町内会, neighborhood associations), small-scale local communities responsible for organizing volunteer firefighting groups, public events, and collective support activities. Elementary schools serve as key anchors for these chōnaikai, and the division into gakku (学区, school districts) is still used today by real estate agencies to categorize and present different neighborhoods to prospective residents.
Yurin Matsuri, 2023.mp4Overview of the Natsu Matsuri organized by the committee of the Yūrin Gakku (有隣学区, Shimogyō), 2023. The event exemplifies community-based initiatives often coordinated by neighborhood associations on a voluntary basis. The latest survey shows that the Yūrin Gakku is still one of the areas with the highest concentration of machiya in Kyōto (350–360 dwellings). Video by author
In recent decades, community ties within chōnaikai have weakened due to various factors, including demographic changes (declining birth rates and population aging) and shifts in work and social habits.
The nature of social aggregation has therefore changed. In the past, local schools or the head of the household’s workplace served as the main social nexus. Today, recreational activities tend to play this role, bringing together groups of both young people and adults. This transformation is observable across Japan, even in cities like Kyōto—where chōnaikai still play a central role in organizing grand festivals such as the Gion Matsuri, Jidai Matsuri, and Aoi Matsuri.
However, chōnaikai formed around clusters of machiya have shown a remarkable resilience in preserving both traditional customs and a sense of community spirit. This collective effort is evident in everyday practices as well as in more solemn celebratory events.
On a day-to-day level, the simple act of passing along the neighborhood bulletin (回覧板, kairanban) from one household to another becomes a brief but meaningful moment of neighborly interaction. Other small exchanges—delivering omiyage souvenirs, collecting mail during a neighbor’s absence, sharing information about upcoming events, or exchanging greetings and brief conversations in the genkan (玄関, entrance area, often visible from the street in roji alleyways)—also contribute to the slow, steady weaving of social ties.
In the district of Murasakino, where dozens of nagaya (row houses) are still clustered together, the social ritual of hinoyōjin (火の用心) is carried out three times a week. In turns, one resident patrols the neighborhood streets, striking two wooden sticks together and calling out to signal their presence. Originally, this practice served as a night-time fire-prevention patrol; today, though technically obsolete thanks to modern technology, it continues to serve an important communal function. It delineates the boundaries of the chōnaikai and reinforces among residents a shared sense of unity and continuity with the past.
Kairanban left at the entrance of the house, 2025. It is common to leave the bulletin outside if the resident is not at home. Photograph by author
Example of neighbourhood kairanban, 2025. Photograph by author
“Even now, there are still many machiya and other wooden buildings in the neighborhood, so if a fire were to break out, it could easily turn into a huge blaze. (...)
Each chōnai carries out its own hi no yōjin fire watch, so you can hear the sound of the wooden clappers echoing from all directions. Because everyone patrols together, it’s easy to notice if a stranger appears.
The neighbors protect the town’s buildings—and its children. (...) With everyone’s eyes alert, no one can get away with doing anything wrong. That’s why steady, everyday efforts like hi no yōjin are indispensable for keeping the community safe."
N. A., local resident in Kamigyō, notes on interview, 2025
Flyer for the Jizōbon festival, published by the City of Kyōto, 2024. Source: City of Kyōto, Bureau of Culture and Citizens Affairs
In addition to the everyday practices that characterize the most resilient chōnaikai, neighborhood associations also play a central role in coordinating local matsuri (祭り, festivals). One of these, the Jizōbon (地蔵盆), is a summer festival dedicated to the guardian deity of children, celebrated across Kyōto every August.
The organization of the event is entrusted to the neighborhood associations, which are responsible for selecting the date, preparing the materials, informing residents and collecting their contributions, purchasing sweets for distribution, and arranging for the temple priest to officiate the ceremony.
The Living Legacy of Spatial Tradition
The Living Legacy of Spatial Tradition
Beyond their role in organizing rituals and public events, machiya also hold a crucial place within the broader dynamics of community life—particularly in the transmission of traditional knowledge to younger generations. Modern Japanese homes, whether studios or apartments, exhibit spatial organizations and architectural characteristics that differ greatly from traditional dwellings. Whereas machiya feature flexible, multi-purpose spaces, contemporary housing is defined by fixed walls and a clear specialization of rooms.
According to most professionals interviewed, key elements such as the tokonoma and the washitsu (和室, tatami room, often enclosed by sliding doors, as opposed to the yōshitsu 洋室, Western-style room with flooring and plastered walls) are now rarely found in modern residences. As noted by A. K. (personal interview, Kyōto, August 2023), children raised in Western-style apartments have little familiarity with traditional Japanese spatiality: they instinctively remove their shoes at the entrance, yet fail to identify the symbolic dimensions of space, do not know how or where to sit in the zashiki, and are unable to perceive the invisible thresholds that separate one area from another.
Interior of the washitsu in an oriyadate townhouse in Kamigyō, 2023. In the original structure, this room was not part of the plan; it was added during renovation at the request of the owner, a weaver specializing in obi. Photograph by author
For these children, visiting machiya within their neighborhood becomes a key opportunity to experience aspects of tradition they otherwise encounter only in textbooks—an embodied connection to a spatial culture that risks disappearing within just a few generations. For this reason, many organizations based in traditional houses, such as Ōnishitsune Shōten (大西常商店), organize workshops for children and adolescents, allowing them to live the domestic environment directly and develop a spatial sensitivity attuned to stimuli different from those of modern architecture.
Furthermore, machiya play a central role in shaping Kyōto’s urban communities by serving as living testimonies of the city’s shared past—tangible embodiments of local history and collective memory. At a time of intense social mobility and demographic reshuffling, the continued presence of these historical buildings allows residents to recognize themselves within a shared heritage, reinforcing both the community’s sense of rootedness and its identification with the surrounding landscape.
Exterior of Ōnishitsune Shōten, 2023.
Originally established during the Edo–Meiji period as a workshop producing motoyui (元結)—paper cords used for tying traditional hairstyles—the Ōnishi family later shifted to the production of folding fans (sensu, 扇子) as Western fashions spread and demand for motoyui declined. For over a century, the company has maintained an integrated process of fan making and sales, supplying temples, shrines, and masters of traditional arts who value uncompromising craftsmanship. Today, Ōnishitsune Shōten aspires to evolve from “a company that makes fans” to “a company that creates breezes,” carrying forward the culture and aesthetics associated with the sensu. Photograph by author.
Exterior of a machiya in Higashiyama, 2023. The structure follows the style of the hon'nikai (本二階), a later architectural type compared to hiraya (平屋) single-story houses and tsūshinikai (通し二階) dwellings with a continuous second floor. It displays elements of traditional architecture, such as kōshi (格子, wooden latticework), degōshi (出格子, projecting latticed windows), and mushikomado (虫籠窓, “insect-cage” windows characterized by their fine vertical bars). Photograph by author
In addition, machiya represent a residential model that, even in their hybrid and experimental forms, resists the sharp division between individual and collective spheres. Rather than conceiving of the home as an enclosed realm separated from the street, machiya promote a porous relationship between domestic and urban life. This permeability is not merely a by-product of commercial functions but is intrinsic to the architectural logic of the building: the sequence of transitional spaces such as the mise-no-ma, the spatial depth that draws the eye from street to garden, and the kōshi (格子) latticework that allows for simultaneous separation and visibility. These features create a gradient between public and private, encouraging everyday forms of participation, surveillance, and mutual awareness among residents and neighbours. Indeed, even today it is common for neighbours to briefly interact in the genkan, sometimes stepping inside to sit and chat for a moment, or for acquaintances to open the front door and wait in that liminal space until the host invites them further in—social practices that reinforce the fluidity of thresholds and the shared responsibility of community life.
Such spatial permeability also shapes the experience of domesticity itself. Living in a machiya means inhabiting an environment where sound, light, seasonal changes, and social interactions constantly flow across thresholds. In this sense, the machiya not only accommodates daily life but actively educates its inhabitants in a culturally specific understanding of how the self relates to the community. Ultimately, the domestic space becomes a medium through which customs, aesthetic values, and embodied forms of knowledge are transmitted across generations—an experiential pedagogy that risks disappearing with the decline of these living environments.
The Ajiki Roji Case
Cover of the volume Ajiki roji de kurasu (あじき路地で暮らす) by Ajiki Hiroko, published in 2015
The Ajiki roji, a fukuroji (復路, blind alley) located off Daikokuchō-dōri in Kyōto’s Higashiyama district within the Rokuhara school district, offers a compelling example of how traditional housing forms intersect with community dynamics. Alongside century-old nagaya (長屋), the roji includes a detached structure belonging to a machiya, garden space, bicycle parking, and since 2009, the Ajiki Gallery, which hosts exhibitions and cultural events.
This alleyway has gained national recognition through NHK reports and local publications, which highlighted it as a model of machizukuri (町造り, community-oriented urban development) based on sustainability and harmony with the urban environment.
Central to these representations is Ajiki Hiroko, the owner of many of the nagaya and a key community figure.
In Ajiki's words, the alley constitutes a seikatsu kūkan (生活空間, “everyday living space”), not merely a passageway but a shared environment for daily encounters, communication, and collective care. The architectural form of the nagaya reinforces this interpretation: their narrow layouts, shared party walls, and minimal private frontage blur the distinction between public and private, making the roji akin to a corridor that links the “rooms” of a larger household.
This conception differentiates the Ajiki roji from fully public thoroughfares like Kakimachi-dōri or Daikokuchō-dōri.
As shown below, its history reveals a deliberate effort by the Ajiki family to cultivate an inward-looking sense of community.
Entrance of Sarashiya, a fukuroji in Shimogyō, 2023. Photograph by author
Roji of machiya houses with a small Shinto shrine, Kyōto, 2023. The narrow alleyway connects several machiya and reveals the coexistence of everyday life and spirituality typical of Kyōto’s traditional urban fabric. The small torii gate marks the presence of a neighborhood shrine nestled within the residential cluster. Photograph by author
In the 1990s, Ajiki roji entered a phase of accelerated decline. After the collapse of the bubble economy, household incomes diminished and urban maintenance budgets tightened, making it increasingly difficult for residents to repair aging nagaya. Many units lacked heating and modern sanitation, and without investment the living environment gradually became unsafe and unhealthy.
Tenant instability further exacerbated the situation; cases of yonige (夜逃げ, literally “night escape,” when renters abruptly departed without paying rent) were common. In this precarious context, the Ajiki family gradually acquired most of the nagaya, intending to rehabilitate the housing stock and stabilize the community.
A turning point came in 2004 with the creation of an association bringing together owners and tenants of the roji. Under Ajiki Hiroko’s guidance, the nagaya were rented to young people in their twenties and thirties for use as residences, workshops, or small shops—but explicitly not as tourist accommodations.
This policy reflects the intention to cultivate the alley as an “incubator” where intergenerational solidarity and exchange could take place, fostering entrepreneurial experimentation in a supportive environment.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of the Ajiki roji is its refusal to embrace tourism, despite its advantageous location and traditional atmosphere. Whereas many neighborhoods have capitalized on short-term rentals and tourist consumption, the Ajiki family has deliberately prioritized local engagement. This commitment is inseparable from a broader aim: preserving the roji as a living environment sustained by (semi-)permanent residents rather than transient visitors. The coexistence of workshops, studios, and domestic spaces is central to this vision, maintaining the historical interplay of living and working that has long characterized roji life. Businesses operating within the machiya are oriented toward Kyōto residents, with the broader aim of positioning the roji as a resource for the city at large. This choice reflects a conviction that the machiya continue to play a vital role in the urban ecosystem, sustaining a culture of everyday life that remains relevant to contemporary Kyōto.
Cover of the manga Roji koibana (路地恋花) by Asō Mikoto (Tōkyō: Kodansha, 2009). The author has stated that it was inspired by her own experiences in the Ajiki roji.
In sum, the Ajiki roji illustrates the enduring significance of traditional housing forms for the cohesion of local communities. Far from functioning merely as relics of the past or as commodities for tourism, the machiya of this alley embody a model of collective living rooted in daily practice. Through deliberate strategies of property management, generational renewal, and symbolic kinship, the Ajiki community has redefined its space as both a physical environment and a social institution, situating the machiya not solely as architectural artifacts but as active participants in the making of community.
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