Japan’s white-walled storehouses
Buildings have been part of the history of Japanese towns for thousands of years. One distinctive style which fascinates historians is the Japanese kura — a storage building with unusually thick white walls more (1) ________ resembling a small fortress than any ordinary nearby storage building. The style has been known in Japan for centuries and it still features (2) ________ in folklore. In many traditions, buildings are often (3) ________ of fear and mistrust but in Japanese stories the kura tends to be (4) ________ as a force for (5) ________. The image of a kura beside an old temple is considered a symbol of safety. But how did the kura (6) ________ its white walls? One legend tells of a wooden storehouse whose dry roof (7) ________ fire. The flames then spread rapidly through the town and damaged many wooden buildings. As a result, the emperor declared that every storehouse should have strong outer walls as a (8) ________ measure. Science, however, has a less romantic explanation based on construction.