Former Nara Family Residence Kitano Rest House

The outlier: a rest house built for an emperor's journey

Six of the seven annexes on the former Nara estate were built for the family. This one was not. The Kitano rest house was raised in 1881 (Meiji 14) as a go-shōkyūjo, a place for Emperor Meiji to pause during his tour of the Ōu region that year. It was first built not on the Nara grounds but at Kitano in Ōkubo, in what is now the Katagami area. Only later did it come to the estate at Kanaashi Koizumi in northern Akita City, and it stands today at the western edge of the site.

The building shows its special origin. A wooden single-story structure of about 54 square meters, five ken along the front by three deep, it carries a hipped roof with a distinctive touch: toward the north, a tower-like belvedere (tōya) rises in irimoya (hip-and-gable) form, giving the low building a vertical accent no ordinary annex would have.

Twice moved, and recognized as a model of its kind

The rest house did not stay where it was built. After its use on the imperial tour, it was moved during the later Meiji period to the estate of the Nara family, who had been involved in its construction. It was then relocated once more within the grounds to its present position; the national database records this move as 1987 (Shōwa 62), while a study by the Akita Prefectural Museum places it a year earlier, in 1986. Either way, the building's survival is a story of careful reassembly.

Inside, a raised four-and-a-half-mat platform leads into a six-mat zashiki, ringed by a veranda of single-plank boards. An earthen-floored veranda (doen) runs outside that, and storm shutters enclose the perimeter. When the seven annexes were entered on the national register in 2006, this one was registered under a different criterion from the storehouses beside it: not for its place in the landscape, but as a model of building design (zōkei no kihan). It is the one annex singled out for the quality of its form.

What to look for on a visit

The former Nara residence is open as an annex of the Akita Prefectural Museum, and admission is free. At the Kitano rest house, look first to the roof: the irimoya belvedere rising at the north is the feature that sets this building apart from the plain storehouses around it. Then step to the veranda and note the single-plank boards and the earthen-floored outer walkway, details fitted for a guest of the highest rank. Because this building came from elsewhere and was reassembled twice, it carries a history distinct from the rest of the estate. Museum staff interpret the grounds, so its unusual story can be read in context alongside the family's own buildings.