Kawabun Restaurant Shinyotei and Connecting Corridor

A detached room north of the main house

The Kawabun Restaurant Shinyotei and Connecting Corridor (料亭河文新用亭及び渡廊下) is a single-storey detached guest room with its covered passage, standing in Marunouchi, Naka-ku, Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, built between 1950 and 1952 and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure) on 9 February 2005. The room has a floor area of 63 square metres and the corridor a further 52 square metres.

Shinyotei (新用亭) sits behind the main house, on the north side of the compound, reached only from within. It is a hanare, a detached wing built apart from the main building and joined to it by a passage. The plan is straightforward: a Zashiki of 10 mats and a saya-no-ma, a narrow buffer room, of 5 mats, set one behind the other on a north to south axis, with a wide veranda wrapped around three sides.

Kawabun itself is much older than the building. The house traces its founding to the Kan'ei era of the early 17th century, when a fish dealer named Kawachiya Bunzaemon set up in the new grid of Nagoya, and the house has occupied this block ever since. The buildings standing today are post-war. Of the five Kawabun structures registered on the same day, the Kawabun Restaurant Shinyotei and Connecting Corridor is the only one that takes a room and the route to it and treats them as a single item.

Why the passage counts as part of the listing

Look at the two figures again. Within the Kawabun Restaurant Shinyotei and Connecting Corridor, the room covers 63 square metres and the passage that leads to it covers 52. The approach is almost as large as the destination, and that ratio is unusual enough to explain why the Agency for Cultural Affairs treated them as one work rather than a building with an appendage.

The corridor runs from the south-west and is built in the ryosage form, its roof falling to either side of a ridge with no gables at the ends. Overhead there is no ceiling: the Keshō-yaneura leaves the underside of the roof structure exposed and finished as the surface you actually see. The floor is laid with Tatami down the centre and boards along both edges, which is a room's treatment applied to a corridor.

The Shinyotei itself is roofed in Irimoya-zukuri with Sangawara-buki tiles. The registration criterion is "a model of design and workmanship", and the commentary singles out the slenderness of the timber. Thin members, generous openings and a light frame belong to the Sukiya-zukuri manner, which grew out of the tea house and was carried into the guest rooms of houses like this one.

Thin timber and a veranda on three sides

The detail worth waiting for at the Kawabun Restaurant Shinyotei and Connecting Corridor is the walk in. A Zashiki entered directly from a hallway arrives all at once. Here you cross 52 square metres of passage first, under an open roof structure, with the tatami strip guiding your feet and the boarded edges catching the light differently. By the time the room opens up, the noise of Marunouchi has been left several turns behind.

Inside, the wide veranda runs along the south, east and north faces. Three sides of glass and paper mean the room takes light from three directions and changes character through the day, which is why a Zashiki of only 10 mats does not feel enclosed.

The 5-mat saya-no-ma sits between the veranda and the main room on the northern side. Rooms like this exist to keep service, coats and conversation from spilling straight into the seating area. It is a piece of planning that a diner notices only as an absence of interruption.

Then there are the timbers. Posts and beams here are deliberately thin, and against them the tatami, the paper and the exposed rafters read as separate materials rather than a single surface. Sit low, look along the veranda, and the frame almost disappears into a grid of lines.

Visiting

The Kawabun Restaurant Shinyotei and Connecting Corridor cannot be seen from the street. It stands behind the main house, and the only way in is as a guest of the house, which is still in business. There is no general admission and no ticket.

Two routes exist. One is to book a meal in a private room. The other is to join one of the guided house tours that Kawabun offers from time to time, which walk through the registered buildings before a seated course. Bookings are handled by telephone; Kawabun closes on Tuesdays and takes calls on other weekdays from 10:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., and on weekends and public holidays from 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

One thing to know in advance: Kawabun states that rooms cannot be requested, since the number available is limited. Booking a meal does not guarantee that you will be seated in the Shinyotei, and a guided tour is the more reliable way to see it. Ask when you book, and ask again about photography, since other guests may be in the building.

Getting there is simple. Marunouchi station on the Nagoya municipal subway serves both the Tsurumai and Sakura-dori lines, and exits 2 and 4 are about five minutes on foot. From Nagoya Station it is two stops on the Sakura-dori line. There is no visitor parking.