Takinami Family Residence Detached Room

About the Takinami Family Residence Detached Room

The Takinami Family Residence Detached Room (瀧波家住宅離れ座敷, Takinami-ke Jūtaku Hanare Zashiki) is a single-storey timber reception wing standing behind the main house across a courtyard on the Takinami property in Honmachi 3-chome, Sabae City, Fukui Prefecture; the Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to the early Showa period (1926-1945), and it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on March 29, 2013.

It has a Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roof and a footprint of 51 square meters, and a connecting corridor links it to the main house. The Agency describes it as an open, airy detached wing that forms part of a merchant household compound.

Rakushōtei and the Regimental Commanders

Sabae City's cultural property page adds history to the Takinami Family Residence Detached Room that the national database does not record. According to the city, the wing was moved here from another site and was known as Rakushōtei (樂松亭). It also served as lodgings for successive commanders of the 36th Infantry Regiment stationed in Sabae, so the inner reception rooms of a merchant house once hosted the officers in charge of the town's garrison.

The sources do not fully agree. The Agency dates the building to the early Showa period, while the city gives a broader span from the Meiji era to the early Showa period, which may take in the age of the building before it was moved. The Agency records a copper-sheet roof, the city a pantiled one. This article follows the Agency.

It was registered under the criterion that it contributes to the historic landscape of the country.

Two Rooms and Log-Trimmed Eaves

According to the Agency, the Takinami Family Residence Detached Room has two tatami rooms placed in a north-south row, wrapped by a veranda under lean-to roofs. The main room measures eight tatami and has a Tokonoma alcove with a Tokowaki side alcove beside it. With the veranda on every side, opening the sliding doors turns the rooms outward toward the courtyard garden.

Round logs are used along the veranda eaves, borrowing the relaxed manner of Sukiya-zukuri tea-house architecture. Where the street front of the main house is built of squared timber, the logs here give the eaves a softer line, suited to rooms meant for receiving guests at ease. Sabae City also introduces it as an open reception room in the sukiya style.

Viewing the Takinami Family Residence Detached Room

The Takinami Family Residence Detached Room stands at the back of a private property beyond the courtyard, and Sabae City states that its interior is not open to the public. No open days or special viewings have been announced.

Because it lies behind the main house, it is probably not visible from the old Hokuriku Kaidō. There is no published rule on photography, but please stay off the property.