At the ground floor is the irori hearth.
Those times a fire was kept constantly burning in the hearth, which was where the cooking was done and the family would gather to eat. No chimneys were built into the houses, and so smoke from the fire simply rises through the rafters to the roof. There, it deposits a layer of soot, which helps preserve the rafters and also keeps down the number of insects and other small creatures that would damage the thatch covering the gassho-zukuri roofs.
It was, however, for the benefit of one particular insect that the gassho-zukuri developed into such large structures. The top two or three floors of the building were used for raising silkworms in what was once a major local industry. The gassho-zukuri roofs allowed large window openings to be built, and these gave the silkworms sufficient light and ventilation. Except along the walls, no pillars were used in the gassho-zukuri construction, thereby opening up a sizable working area. And this space was given over to the large trays on which the silkworms were kept, voraciously munching their way through the piles of mulberry leaves.
Wada-ke House.
The Wada family was one of the wealthiest families and village leaders of Ogimachi. Their former home is the largest gassho-zukuri farmhouse inOgimachi, and is now open to the public as a museum.
Ogimachi is the largest village and main attraction of Shirakawa-go. Declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 1995, the village is home to several dozen well preserved gassho-zukuri farmhouses, some of which are more than 250 years old.
