A roof built to catch northern light
Meiji Village Takada Oguma Photo Studio (明治村高田小熊写真館, Meijimura Takada Oguma Shashinkan) is a photographer's studio of about 1908 that now stands at the Meiji Mura museum in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, and was entered on the national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 17 February 2004.
The building spent its working life somewhere quite different. It stood in Takada, a castle town on the Sea of Japan coast that is now the Honcho district of Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture. Snow piles deep there. Householders climb onto their roofs several times a winter to shovel it off.
Oguma Wasuke opened the studio. He had gone to Tokyo to train at the Egi photographic studio, then returned home to set up on his own. The design is credited to Oguma himself, and local carpenters are thought to have done the building work.
Takada was filling up that year. The Imperial Japanese Army stationed its 13th Division in the town on 1 November 1908, and Takada lived as a garrison town until the division was disbanded in 1925. In January 1911 an officer attached to that division, Major Theodor von Lerch of Austria-Hungary, gave Japan its first systematic skiing instruction on the slope of Kanayasan nearby. Meiji Village Takada Oguma Photo Studio was taking portraits in a town of uniforms and snow.
Redevelopment of the Honcho shopping street took the building down in 1981. It was re-erected at Meiji Mura the following year, in 1982, where it occupies plot 65 in Area 5 of the museum grounds.
Why Meiji Village Takada Oguma Photo Studio was listed
The Agency for Cultural Affairs holds the building under registration number 23-0119, with a single criterion cited: that it offers a model of design. The record gives a timber frame of two storeys, a sheet iron roof, and a building area of 70 square meters, counted as one building. Note that this is a registered property rather than a designated one. Registration and designation are separate systems in Japanese heritage law, and the register was created for buildings of this kind: useful, provincial, and altered over time.
What earns the listing is that a technical constraint shaped the whole building. A Meiji photographer had no lamp bright enough to expose a plate. Sunlight was the only source, and direct sun throws hard shadows and shifts through the day. North light does neither. It stays even, and it stays soft.
So the studio faces north, and the northern slope of its gabled roof was glazed across its full width. The southern slope is ordinary sheet iron. Seen in section, the two halves of the roof are doing entirely different jobs, and the photographic room sits on the upper floor directly beneath the glass.
Everything else is plain. The walls are weatherboarded with the post positions left visible, and the windows are simple sashes. Ornament is concentrated at the entrance and nowhere else.
What to look at
The glass slope
The roof is the first thing you notice, and the steep north face reads as one large pane of sky. Think of it as a light fitting rather than a roof and the pitch and the area both make sense.
Upstairs you come out underneath it. No ceiling was ever fitted, so the rafters and the frame are open to view, and daylight arrives filtered through the timbers. That is a sensation the photographs of the building never convey.
Black cloth, white cloth, and a window for the snow
Lengths of white and black cloth hang on the inside of the glazing. Sliding them changed the quantity and the direction of the light for each sitter and each hour of the day. Reflectors and diffusers could not be bought, so the building itself became the lighting rig.
High on the studio wall, close to the roof, there is a small window. It exists so that someone could get out and clear the snow. A loaded glass roof lets in no light and may break under the weight, and a photographer in Takada had to plan for that. This is the detail that keeps Meiji Village Takada Oguma Photo Studio tied to the snow country it came from, even standing in Aichi.
The Taisho shopfront
The entrance block was added in the early Taisho period, between 1912 and 1925. Its show window has a stone-faced base, and a broad parapet of geometric pattern runs across the top. A building made for taking pictures acquired a face for attracting customers.
Stand where the two parts meet. The pitch of the roof, the rhythm of the openings, and the density of ornament all change at that line, and the join tells you which part came first.
Fittings that were also props
A long bench and a pair of Western style columns are built into the photographic room as joinery. They are not furniture that was carried in; they were made as part of the building, ready to be posed against. Sample portraits hang around the staircase leading up to the room.
The ground floor holds a reception room behind the entrance, a workroom that doubled as living quarters under the studio, and a darkroom and lavatory at the back. Upstairs, above the entrance, is a space for touching up hair and make-up before a sitting. The dormer room began as storage and was later converted into living space. Working, waiting, and living are folded into 70 square meters.
Visiting Meiji Village Takada Oguma Photo Studio
The building is open, and you can walk inside. It is one of the exhibition buildings of Meiji Mura, an open air museum of Meiji period architecture, and admission to the museum covers it. Look for plot 65 in Area 5.
Opening hours move with the season. In April, May, June, July, September and October the museum is open 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; in August, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; in December, January and February the day shortens to 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Last admission is 30 minutes before closing. Closed days are set month by month, so check the museum calendar before travelling.
Admission is 2,500 yen for adults, 1,500 yen for high school students and 700 yen for junior high and elementary school students. Preschool children enter free. Curatorial staff run short building talks on some days, with no booking needed.
Hand held photography is allowed. Tripods are not permitted inside the buildings, so raise the sensitivity and work off the north light, which is the point of the place anyway.
Getting there takes about 20 minutes by Gifu Bus on the Meijimura route, leaving from the east exit of Meitetsu Inuyama Station. By car it is 3 kilometers from the Komaki Higashi interchange of the Chuo Expressway, and car parking costs 1,000 yen. The museum is laid out across hilly ground with slopes and steps throughout, and Meiji Village Takada Oguma Photo Studio sits well inside the grounds rather than near the north entrance.
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Q&A
- Can you visit Meiji Village Takada Oguma Photo Studio, and what does it cost?
- Yes. It is an exhibition building at Meiji Mura and the interior is open to visitors. Museum admission is 2,500 yen for adults, 1,500 yen for high school students and 700 yen for junior high and elementary school students. Hours vary by season: 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in April, May, June, July, September and October, and 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. in December, January and February. Last admission is 30 minutes before closing.
- Is photography allowed inside Meiji Village Takada Oguma Photo Studio?
- Hand held photography is fine. Meiji Mura does not permit tripods inside its buildings. The photographic room is lit only by the glazed north roof, so conditions change a great deal with the weather and the hour.
- How do you get to Meiji Village Takada Oguma Photo Studio?
- Take the Gifu Bus Meijimura route about 20 minutes from the east exit of Meitetsu Inuyama Station. Drivers should allow 3 kilometers off the Komaki Higashi interchange of the Chuo Expressway; parking is 1,000 yen. Inside the museum the building is at plot 65 in Area 5.
- Where did Meiji Village Takada Oguma Photo Studio originally stand?
- In Takada, now the Honcho district of Joetsu in Niigata Prefecture. Oguma Wasuke built it around 1908. Street redevelopment led to its dismantling in 1981, and it was rebuilt at Meiji Mura in 1982.
- Why is only the north slope of the roof of Meiji Village Takada Oguma Photo Studio made of glass?
- Meiji era photographers had no artificial light strong enough to expose a plate, so they worked by daylight. Light from the north varies least over the course of a day and casts softer shadows. Glazing the whole north slope gave the studio that light, and white and black cloths hung inside let the photographer control it.
Basic Information
| Name | Meiji Village Takada Oguma Photo Studio |
|---|---|
| Location | Meiji Mura, 1 Uchiyama, Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture (Area 5, plot 65) |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure) |
| Year Designated | Registered in 2004 (Heisei 16) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Building area 70 square meters, timber frame of 2 storeys, sheet iron roof |
| Owner | Meiji Mura Public Interest Foundation |
| Public Access | Open. Interior viewable as an exhibit building at Meiji Mura |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database: Meijimura Takada Oguma Shashinkan
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00003885
- Aichi Prefecture, Bunkazai Navi Aichi: Meijimura Takada Oguma Shashinkan
- https://www.pref.aichi.jp/kyoiku/bunka/bunkazainavi/yukei/kenzoubutu/kunitouroku/1138.html
- Meiji Mura Museum: Takada Oguma Shashinkan
- https://www.meijimura.com/sight/%E9%AB%98%E7%94%B0%E5%B0%8F%E7%86%8A%E5%86%99%E7%9C%9F%E9%A4%A8/
- Meiji Mura Museum: Opening hours and closing days
- https://www.meijimura.com/guide/open/
- Meiji Mura Museum: Admission charges
- https://www.meijimura.com/guide/price/
- Meiji Mura Museum: Access
- https://www.meijimura.com/guide/access/
- Joetsu City Archives: the 13th Division at Takada
- https://www.city.joetsu.niigata.jp/soshiki/koubunsho/tenji17.html
- Joetsu City: the birthplace of skiing in Japan
- https://www.city.joetsu.niigata.jp/site/museum/japanese-ski-origination.html
Last verified: 2026.09.03