Yamaguchi Family Residence Tea Room

What the Yamaguchi Family Residence Tea Room Is

The Yamaguchi Family Residence Tea Room (山口家住宅茶室, Yamaguchi-ke Jūtaku Chashitsu) is a Chashitsu built in 1893 in the town of Kanie, Aichi Prefecture, and added to the national list of Registered Tangible Cultural Property holdings on 26 January 2011 (Heisei 23). The single-storey timber building covers 35 square meters, roofed in tile with a section of sheet metal. An inner gate, a garden gate and a run of wall are covered by the same listing.

It stands at the southwest corner of the compound and connects to the broad veranda of the main house. The roof is Kirizuma-zukuri laid with Sangawara-buki tile. Inside, the tea room and its Mizuya preparation area run north to south, with a six-mat room and a lavatory to the east. The tea room itself is four and a half mats, with the hearth cut in the position that name implies.

The timber was chosen with care. The alcove post is cherry left with the rounded outer face of the log partly intact, and other posts and frames use polished round timber. That treatment gives an edge softer than a squared beam, and it is the sort of detail a tea room is judged on.

Who Built It

According to Kanie Town's commentary on its cultural properties, the Yamaguchi Family Residence Tea Room was built under the design guidance of Yoshida Shōkei of the Omotesenke school of tea. Private tea rooms rarely come with that kind of attribution attached, which is part of why this one is on the register.

The building was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in the buildings category on 26 January 2011, under registration number 23-0331, and the criterion cited is that it serves as a model of its form. Note that this is registration, not designation: Japan runs the two as separate systems with different footing.

The late Edo period main house and the front gate of 1908 went onto the register the same day. Each building was registered on its own and carries its own number, so the three are separate listings. The tea room falls between the other two in date.

What to Look For

What the Agency for Cultural Affairs records about this room is not gloom but openness. A window sits beside the alcove at the level of the brazier stand, and the north wall carries both a nijiriguchi, the low crawl-through entrance a guest stoops to pass, and a large paper-screened window. Putting a generous source of light next to that small door sets the character of the whole room.

The roof is Kirizuma-zukuri in Sangawara-buki tile with some sheet metal. At 35 square meters the building is small next to the 192 square meters of the main house. Its standing in the compound was never a matter of size.

The listing takes in the inner gate, the garden gate and the wall as well as the building. The approach survives along with the room, which means the sequence of walking the Roji garden path and arriving at the door is preserved as space rather than only as description.

Visiting the Yamaguchi Family Residence Tea Room

The Yamaguchi Family Residence Tea Room sits inside a privately owned compound and is not open to the public. You cannot enter the grounds, tour the interior, or attend a gathering here. Because it stands at the southwest corner behind the main house, it is also hard to see from the street.

Photography is limited to what is visible from the public road. This is a residential neighbourhood, so looking over walls or lingering is not appropriate.

The address is 4-215 Shiro, Kanie, Ama District, Aichi Prefecture. Kanie Station on the Kintetsu Nagoya Line is about 5 minutes on foot; Kanie Station on the JR Kansai Main Line is about 20 minutes.

For background, the Kanie Town Museum of History and Folklore at 1-214 Shiro, Kanie (telephone 0567-95-3812) covers the town's listed buildings. It opens from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., closes Mondays and from December 29 to January 3, and admission is free. Its cultural property guide map includes the Yamaguchi Family Residence Tea Room.