if we look at ancient Egyptian hieroglyps used to depict a house and entrance, we will see that that hieroglyps focus upon the walls. Perhaps this reflects the way in which buildings were constructed there - by building up from the foundation. This empasis on the walls, which was to influence the evolution. This emphasis on walls, which was to influence the evolution of Western architecture, presumably developed from the need to provide a comfortable interior sheltered from the harsh climate.

If we look at the Japanese writing system, based on the characters borrowed from th Chinese, we will see that the characters for house and other buildings all contain the topmost element, the roof. This reflects the Japanse process of housing contruction - erecting a wood outer frame and covering it with a roof before making the inner walls. This emphasis on the roof may have developed as a result if the requirment that houses offer shelter from the rain while permitting cross ventilation in the hot and humid summer of Japan. In this way we can find a major conceptual diffence between Western and Japanse attituted toward Architecture.

The Physical division of space in a timber-framed Japanese house chracteristically occurs after the foof is raised, unlike the traditional Western Method of building in stone, where the walls separating, each room are built first and the roof put in place afterward, creating in the end a whole of separte spatial units. The interface between interior and exterior is also differnt. In Masonry contruction, a solid wall separted inside and out and is strucurally important, so that few openings are pemitted. Wood Frame construction in Japan on the other hand, requires no enclosure betwen the supporting posts and, with the use of movable partitions, it is possible at any time top open interior and exterior spaces to each other. This style of wood construction