Hosenji Shoin (former Hattori Residence Shoin)

Hosenji Shoin (Former Hattori Family Residence Shoin): A Hidden Sukiya Treasure in Tsushima

Tucked behind the white walls of a quiet Pure Land temple just a short stroll from Tsushima Shrine, the Hosenji Shoin (Hosenji Shoin / Kyu-Hattori-ke Jutaku Shoin) is one of those rare buildings that rewards travellers who step a little off the standard sightseeing route. Originally built as the private guest wing of a wealthy fertilizer merchant in the Meiji era, it was carefully dismantled and rebuilt within the precincts of Hosenji Temple in 1930. Today it survives as a graceful example of refined sukiya-style architecture and is registered as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan.

The shoin is a low, single-storey wooden pavilion with a hipped-and-gabled tile roof, designed to be enjoyed as much from its surrounding verandas as from inside. Inside, polished round timbers, paulownia transoms, and a small tea room create the atmosphere of an early twentieth-century connoisseur's retreat — a perfect counterpoint to the great festival town that lies all around it.

From Merchant Mansion to Temple: A Story of Two Hattori Hidesuke

To understand this building you have to follow the fortunes of one Tsushima merchant family. The Hattori family operated a long-established fertilizer business under the trade name "Sasahide," and successive heads of the household took the name Hattori Hidesuke as a hereditary business name. The original mansion stood elsewhere in Tsushima, where the shoin functioned as a refined reception space for guests and tea gatherings.

The Nobi Earthquake of 1891

The story of the present building cannot be separated from one of central Japan's worst natural disasters. The Nobi Earthquake of October 1891, with its epicentre in the plains around Aichi and Gifu, devastated the Tsushima area. Hosenji Temple itself lost its main hall and most of its principal buildings. The Hattori residence — like much of the town — also suffered heavy damage. The shoin we see today is believed to have been rebuilt in the middle Meiji period, immediately after the earthquake. Tell-tale evidence is found above the ceiling, where iron metal fittings were quietly installed in the roof structure as a then-novel form of seismic reinforcement.

A 1930 Gift to the Temple

The fifth-generation Hattori Hidesuke (1871–1964) was both the heir to the Sasahide business and the head parishioner of Hosenji Temple. In 1930 — the twenty-third memorial year of the previous Hattori Hidesuke — he made a remarkable decision. To honour his ancestor and to support his temple, which was still rebuilding from the earthquake, he had the entire shoin disassembled, transported, and re-erected on the temple grounds as a personal donation. A small extension was added to the western side at this time, becoming the present hikae-no-ma (waiting room).

Why It Was Recognised as a Cultural Property

The Hosenji Shoin is registered as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property because it preserves, almost intact, the layered character of late-Meiji to early-Showa upper-class urban culture in Tsushima. Several aspects make it unusually valuable.

A Surviving Example of Refined Meiji Sukiya-Style Architecture

Sukiya-style architecture grew out of the rustic aesthetics of the tea ceremony, blending the formality of the shoin (study room) with the natural materials and quiet restraint of the tea house. By the Meiji period, the well-to-do urban merchant class was building drawing rooms in this style as a sign of cultivation. Many were lost to fire, war, or modernization. Hosenji's shoin, with its tokonoma (display alcove), tsuke-shoin (built-in writing desk window), and tokowaki (decorative side board), is a refined and well-preserved example of the type.

Earthquake-Conscious Construction

The discreet use of iron fittings hidden inside the roof attic is itself historically significant. It documents the moment when traditional Japanese carpentry began to absorb modern engineering knowledge in response to the trauma of the 1891 disaster.

A Living Story of Civic Generosity

Few cultural properties carry such a clear human narrative — a respected merchant family, a grieving temple, and a single act of donation that connected them. The building is, in effect, a piece of social history made visible.

Architectural Highlights to Look For

Even at first glance the building rewards careful looking. The structure is a single-storey wooden building with an irimoya (hipped-and-gabled) roof finished in sangawara pan tiles. Verandas wrap around three sides of the main rooms, and the rhythm of corridor, room, and garden is one of the defining pleasures of the architecture.

The Veranda and Ceiling

Walk slowly along the veranda and look up. The beam supporting the eaves is a single round log running the entire length of the corridor. The ceiling is a kesho yaneura (decorative open-roof) treatment, in which polished slender round timbers alternate with finely split square battens, producing a striking play of round and angular lines. The flooring rhythm is also unusual: a narrow strip of tatami runs along the room edge, while the rest of the corridor is laid with wooden planks.

The Zashiki: Heart of the Building

The main zashiki is the heart of the shoin and contains all three classic features of formal architecture: a tokonoma alcove, a tsuke-shoin writing-desk window, and a tokowaki side cabinet. The window of the tsuke-shoin is fitted with tateshige-gumi shoji — densely arranged vertical lattice with a "scattered" rhythm of horizontal cross-bars. Above the alcove, the ranma (transom) is made from a single broad plank of paulownia wood, prized for its pale, silky grain.

The Tea Room

On the north side, opening from the main rooms, is a small tea room with a tatami-floored alcove a single bay wide. The east wall of the alcove and a half-bay along the corridor are pierced by shitaji-mado — small rough-finish windows where the inner reed-and-bamboo lattice of the wall is left exposed as a decorative motif. These windows are a hallmark of refined tea-ceremony architecture and give the room its characteristically soft, filtered light.

Subtle Joinery

Throughout the building, the dividers between corridor, next room, and main rooms are carefully varied — koshi-tsuki shoji (paper screens with a wooden lower panel), fusuma sliding doors, ita-do plank panels, and shoji ranma transoms — so that no two thresholds are quite the same.

Visiting Hosenji and the Surrounding Area

Hosenji is a Pure Land temple of the Jodo-shu Seizan Zenrin-ji school, said to have been founded in the Tenbun era (1532–1555). It sits in Ikefu-cho, an old quarter of Tsushima just a few minutes' walk from the great Tsushima Shrine. The shoin stands within the temple precincts as a working part of the temple, so visitors are kindly asked to respect the religious atmosphere of the site.

Access

Tsushima is easily reached from Nagoya. Take the Meitetsu Tsushima Line from Meitetsu Nagoya Station to Tsushima Station — a journey of around 25 minutes. From Tsushima Station, Hosenji is roughly a 7-minute walk through the historic streets. By car, Tsushima is about 15 minutes from the Yatomi IC on the Higashi-Meihan Expressway.

How to See the Shoin

Because the shoin is part of an active temple and the residence of its priests, it is not normally open as a tourist attraction. Travellers wishing to see the building should contact Hosenji directly in advance, or look out for special openings organised by the Aichi Registered Cultural Property Owners' Association and the Tsushima City Tourist Association, which occasionally arrange guided viewings of registered heritage properties in the city.

Things to See and Do Nearby

The shoin makes most sense as part of a wider day in Tsushima, a town that is unusually rich in heritage for its size.

Tsushima Shrine

A few minutes' walk away, Tsushima Shrine is the head shrine of around 3,000 Tennō (Gozu Tennō) shrines across Japan. Its romon gate, donated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1591, and its main hall, donated by the wife of Matsudaira Tadayoshi in 1605, are both designated National Important Cultural Properties. The shrine has been venerated for protection from epidemics for centuries.

Hotta Family Residence

Two or three minutes from the shrine stands the Hotta Family Residence, a National Important Cultural Property and one of the few middle-Edo merchant townhouses preserved in this region. With its low eaves and well-preserved interior, it offers a vivid sense of the prosperous townscape that surrounded the original Hattori mansion.

Tennogawa Park

A short walk south brings you to Tennogawa Park, the site of the famous Owari Tsushima Tennō Festival, held every July. The park is celebrated for one of Japan's most spectacular wisteria trellises — around 275 metres long — which blooms each spring.

Owari Tsushima Tennō Festival

If you can plan your visit for the fourth weekend of July, you will be in time for the Owari Tsushima Tennō Festival, one of Japan's three great river festivals. Its illuminated lantern-decked makiwara boats, recognised by UNESCO as part of the "Yama, Hoko, Yatai float festivals" Intangible Cultural Heritage, make for an unforgettable summer night.

Akada and Kutsuwa Sweets

Before leaving Tsushima, try the local specialty akada and kutsuwa — small, deep-fried rice-flour sweets traditionally offered to pilgrims at Tsushima Shrine and reputed to be among the hardest confections in Japan.