Takinami Family Residence Main House

About the Takinami Family Residence Main House

The Takinami Family Residence Main House (瀧波家住宅主屋, Takinami-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a townhouse built around 1887 facing east onto the old Hokuriku Kaidō highway in Honmachi 3-chome, Sabae City, Fukui Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on March 29, 2013.

It is a two-storey timber building with a Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles and a footprint of 172 square meters. Of the four registered buildings on the Takinami property, the main house is the one that stands at the front. The detached room lies behind it across a courtyard, and the large storehouse sits to the north.

A Traditional Front and a Western-Style Back

What the Agency for Cultural Affairs singles out in the Takinami Family Residence Main House is that one building wears two faces.

The street front follows local custom. Both floors are built in the Degeta-zukuri manner, the facade carries Degōshi latticed bays, and a short Udatsu firewall stands at each end. The Agency describes this as the traditional townhouse form of the region. At the rear, however, a projecting wing has its ground floor finished in washed mortar made to look like stone, a deliberate Western touch. The house keeps the old manners where the street can see them and tries out new Meiji tastes at the back.

Sabae City calls the Takinami main house a valuable example of a high-grade modern Machiya in Sabae. It was registered under the criterion that it contributes to the historic landscape of the country, which here means the part it plays in the streetscape of the old highway.

Projecting Beams and Lean-to Roofs

In degeta-zukuri, bracket arms reach forward from the posts and carry a beam that in turn supports the eaves. The eaves can then project a long way without posts beneath them, leaving the shopfront open. According to Sabae City, the Takinami Family Residence Main House follows this system, with the arms holding the projecting beam and boards lining the underside of the eaves. Because the arrangement is repeated on both floors, the facade reads as two strong horizontal lines drawn along the street.

Lean-to roofs run along three sides of the Takinami house. On the north side the lean-to is tiled and about 1.8 meters (one ken) wide, on the south side it is tiled and a little over 1.2 meters wide, and on the courtyard side at the back it is roofed in sheet metal and about 0.9 meters wide. The metal roofing is confined to the courtyard side, out of sight of the street.

The udatsu at each end are small firewalls where the upper wall steps forward at the boundary with the neighbors. They also came to signal a household's standing, and from the street they frame the row of latticed bays like a pair of bookends.

Viewing the Takinami Family Residence Main House

The Takinami Family Residence Main House is a private home, and Sabae City states that its interior is not open to the public. What you can see is the front elevation on the old Hokuriku Kaidō.

Because the house faces east, the facade catches the morning sun, and the latticed bays and projecting beams cast crisp shadows on the wall. Step back to the opposite side of the street to see how the two tiers of eaves sit between the end firewalls. The Western-style rear wing faces the courtyard and cannot be seen from the road. There is no published rule on photography, but please treat it as someone's home and stay on the public street.