廣間

About this photo

The Japanese title, hiroma, means a large room for receiving guests. This photo of a room in winter shows rows of hibachi braziers and floor cushions. It appears in Nihon Fukei Fuzoku Shashincho (Photo Album of Japanese Scenery and Customs), published in 1910. There, the English caption calls it a winter guest room and explains that the round white vessels are hibachi, with lit charcoal neatly arranged in soft ash, and that each guest is given a hibachi and a silk cushion. Where it was taken is not known.

A hibachi is a heater in which charcoal burns in a vessel lined with ash. Because the ash blocks the heat, the vessel itself does not get too hot. Hibachi were made of ceramic, metal or wood, were already in use in the Nara period, and spread into the daily lives of townspeople from the Edo period through the Meiji era. You can also set an iron kettle on a trivet (gotoku) to boil water, or lay a grill on top to toast mochi rice cakes.

For a long time the hibachi was the main way to heat a room in winter, but with Japan's rapid economic growth after the war it gave way to stoves and other heaters and gradually disappeared. Today hibachi are prized as antiques and interior pieces, and are sometimes used as planters or goldfish bowls.

Glossary