Shoji : Japanese Home Decor

Japanese Shoji designs, applied appropriately, can lend a special asian charm to your home or office and open up bold and exciting avenues for redesigning your home or redecorating your office. One needs to know the basic elements of Japanese interior design as well as Japanese inspired shoji designs to use them judiciously. Components of Japanese Shoji designs include shoji screens, Japanese furniture and shoji lamps. What a designer who opts for Japanese shoji decor should know is the exact place where each component fits in.

Tatami mats and shoji doors and screens are the key elements of Japanese shoji design. Even to a western home they give an elegant look. Shoji sliding doors consist of wood grids and frame doors, covered with a thin paper, pasted over it. The 6-feet-high wood door is normally unfinished. Though in more modern homes they are used to partition areas, their primary traditional function has been to divide interior space from exterior space. Shoji sliding doors are also ideal for bathrooms.

Japanese shoji design can help you change the size and shape of a room as you wish, using shoji screens such as shoji folding screens, and shoji lamps. Now by applying some Japanese lighting techniques whether in the form of shoji table lamps or shoji floor lamps --low, soft, and beautiful, you can even change the ambience of a room, and change the way the inside of your room looks, thanks to the wide scope thrown up by Japanese shoji designs and decorating. An additional choice to consider is shoji lanterns

A Japanese touch for your home or room means much more. Japanese shoji design caters to the demands of contemporary lifestyles as well as to the traditional Japanese design. Whether a modern or traditional home, one can trace the grace and elegance of the Japanese sensibility in it; whether in its fluid floor plans or in its use of natural materials such as shoji paper used in making shoji panels.

The simple beauty of Japanese shoji design has inspired several of the world's great architects and designers such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Bruno Taut, and Terence Conran, to name a few. Renowned Japanese photographer Noboru Murata has captured this Japanese spirit in his camera. On a more humble scale interest has grown in learning the methods involved in making shoji screens

Japanese Shoji designs have been incorporated into modern Western homes in various ways. Large pane windows with unpleasant views, if covered with shoji blinds, will give a better look. Walls too, if covered with shoji, give a feel of more spaciousness. The screen's natural reflecting qualities give the insides of rooms more nuanced light.

Shoji skylights are another example of modern Western application of Japanese Shoji design. Shoji also functions an enclosure for the verandah in the outside. Frosted glass is an excellent substitute for shoji paper. Therefore, in order to avoid the glaring effect of sunlight, sliding panels can be used for summer home porches. It can also be used to keep away chilly winds when the need arises.

This being the time of globalization, a great deal of intercultural influence can seen reflecting every sphere of East-West relations. Whether it is science or fiction, the exchange of ideas and cultures has been a global trend. Thus modern western society has come under a number of influences of asian aesthetics. One of the best examples for this has been Japanese shoji designs.