Aizanso Annex

About the Aizanso Annex

The Aizanso Annex (愛山荘離れ, Aizansō Hanare) is a single-storey timber wing of reception rooms built around 1916, enlarged in 1942 and joined by a corridor to the east side of the main house at Aizanso in Wakatake-cho, Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture; it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2017.

It has a tiled roof, a building area of 151 square metres and a connecting corridor. The Aizanso Annex is really two parts: a single six-mat room known as the "old annex" and a pair of rooms of ten and six mats known simply as the annex. The names suggest that the old annex is the Taisho-period core and the larger annex the 1942 addition.

Its registered address is lot 2 Amano, separate from the lot 1-4 shared by the other eight structures at Aizanso.

Why it was registered

The Aizanso Annex was registered as a model of good design, and the national description finds something modern in each of its two parts.

In the old annex, the garden-facing southeast corner is wrapped on two sides by an L-shaped run of low cupboards, and everything above them is glass. Storage is kept low and the upper half of both walls is window, so a guest sitting on the mats sees the garden in two directions at once.

The annex proper is more restrained. Its one flourish is a round window beside the Tokonoma alcove. A single circle set among the straight lines of a Japanese room changes its character more than you might expect.

What to look for

The corner window

If you are seated in the old annex, look first at the southeast corner. The cupboards turn the corner between the posts and the glazing runs above them, so the room opens at its corner instead of closing. For a room of only six mats, the effect is generous.

The round window

In the annex, the round window by the alcove frames a disc of garden green that changes with the season.

Two periods side by side

The old annex and the later annex sit at the end of the same corridor. One opens its corner with glass; the other settles for a single round window. Comparing them is a good way to see how taste shifted within one household between the Taisho years and 1942.

Seeing it

Like the main house, the Aizanso Annex is used as dining space by Koshi no Kuni Aizanso, so the usual way to see the rooms is to book a meal. Rooms are assigned by the restaurant; if you have one in mind, ask when you reserve.

From the east side of the garden you can follow the corridor from the main house and the low roofs of the annex beyond it. Follow the staff's guidance on photography. Directions and opening hours are on the Aizanso page.