A House With No Ceilings
The Former Igarashi Family Residence (旧五十嵐家住宅, Kyū-Igarashi-ke Jūtaku) in Tōdera, Aizubange Town, Kawanuma District, Fukushima Prefecture, is a thatched farmhouse of the mid-Edo period, built in 1729 and designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan on 11 March 1971.
Step through the great door and look up. There is nothing between you and the underside of the roof. No ceiling boards, no attic floor, just the smoke-blackened frame and the thatch above it, in every room of the house.
This is not neglect or loss. It is how the house was built, and it is one of the reasons the building is on the national list. By the eighteenth century, farmhouses of any pretension in the Aizu basin were fitting ceilings over at least the formal rooms. This one never did, and because the family kept living in it with remarkably little alteration until 1955, the early arrangement survived intact into the era of professional conservation.
The construction year comes from ink writing found on a beam strut: Kyōhō 14, that is 1729. The house belonged to the Igarashi family of Nakabiraizu, elsewhere in Aizubange Town, and was given to the town by them. The national record names Igarashi Tomonobu as the donor.
The Plan of a Middle-Ranking Farming Household
The Igarashi were honbyakushō: farmers who held land in their own name and paid tax directly to the domain, distinct both from the village headman class above them and from tenants below. Within that band they sat in the middle, and the house is a textbook example of what a household at that level built on the flat land of the Aizu basin.
The great door sits slightly left of centre on the front elevation. A little over a third of the interior, on the left, is earth floor and stable. The right-hand side holds three boarded rooms: the nakanoma or living room, the zashiki for receiving guests, and a sleeping room behind. This layout, three rooms with one of them functioning as a wide general-purpose hall, is the hiroma type, and it is the standard plan for this class of household in this part of Fukushima.
The shape is a plain rectangle, called sugoya in Japanese, with no projecting wing. That is worth registering, because farmhouses in the mountains of the same prefecture often grew an L-shaped extension for the entrance and stable.
Two details in that plan reward attention.
The first is underfoot. The nakanoma, known in the local dialect as the omē, was not boarded. Straw and woven matting were laid directly onto packed earth, a treatment called doza. Families sat, ate and slept on it. Boarded floors raised on joists were the newer, more expensive option, and the survival of an earth-based living floor in a house of this date is exactly the kind of evidence that is normally destroyed by the first modernisation.
The second is at the base of the posts. There is no continuous sill beam. Each post stands directly on a rounded stone, the timber cut to match the irregular top of the rock beneath it. This is ishibadate construction, older and simpler than the sill-beam framing that later became standard, and it leaves the frame free to shift slightly on its stones rather than resisting movement rigidly.
On dimensions, the sources record the building differently and the figures do not reconcile neatly. Aizubange Town gives eight and a half bays by three and a half, with a floor area of 117.19 square metres. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives 16.3 metres by 8.0 metres, while Cultural Heritage Online gives 16.3 by 7.9. Bay counts and metric measurements are taken from different reference points, so the two sets should be read side by side rather than converted into each other.
Taken Apart, Reinforced, Put Back
The house was lived in until 1955 and altered comparatively little during that time, which is unusual and fortunate. It does not, however, stand where it was built.
Aizubange Town began a full dismantling and repair programme in the 1994 fiscal year, as part of developing a local heritage precinct, and completed the relocation and restoration in the 1997 fiscal year. The building was opened to the public from 1996.
One decision from that project deserves mention. The Great Hanshin earthquake struck in January 1995, in the middle of the work. The lesson was applied on site: seismic reinforcement boards were built into the earth walls as they were rebuilt. A visitor sees nothing of this. The wall surfaces look like ordinary daub, and the frame reads as it should. The reinforcement sits inside the wall thickness, invisible, holding a 1729 building against a hazard its carpenter never designed for.
It is a small illustration of what conservation of a working building actually involves: not freezing an object, but keeping it standing on terms the present will accept.
The house now functions as a cultural facility available for lifelong learning activities, and old farm tools and folk craft objects are displayed inside, giving some sense of how the space was used.
Visiting, and What Else Is on the Hill
Admission is free and the interior is open. Aizubange Town publishes hours of 9:00 to 16:00, from April through November. The house is closed on Mondays, with the following day taken instead when Monday is a public holiday; it is also closed on the day after a public holiday, unless that day falls on a Saturday or Sunday. From 1 December to 31 March it is shut for the winter. Enquiries go to the Cultural Promotion Section of the Aizubange Town Board of Education on 0242-83-3010.
There is no published restriction on photography for personal use, but the building is a working heritage facility and it is sensible to ask if staff are present.
By train, the nearest station is Tōdera on the JR Tadami Line, about fifteen to twenty minutes on foot. By car, allow around five minutes from the Aizu-Bange interchange on the Ban-etsu Expressway, or about fifteen from the Niitsuru smart interchange. The site occupies raised ground with an open view across the Aizu basin.
Almost nobody comes here for the farmhouse alone, and there is no reason to. Roughly sixty metres away stands Eryūji, better known as Tachiki Kannon, a Shingon temple of the Buzan branch whose main image is a standing thousand-armed Kannon carved from a single tree and among the largest single-block Buddhist sculptures in Japan. It is one of the three Aizu Korori Kannon sites. Shinshimizu Hachiman Shrine lies about 240 metres off. A single walk covers all three, and the juxtaposition is the reward: a monumental temple image, a village shrine, and the unceilinged house of the farmers who lived under the same sky and paid for both.
A caution about the name. Fukushima Prefecture has two Important Cultural Properties called the Former Igarashi Family Residence, and they are constantly confused. The other is in Kanōzu, Tadami Town, Minamiaizu District: built in 1718, designated in 1972, and roughly an hour and a half away by car. The two houses are unrelated in family, in date and in building type. Check the town name in any listing before you plan a route.
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Q&A
- Can I go inside the Former Igarashi Family Residence in Aizubange, and what are the opening hours?
- Yes, the interior is open and admission is free. Aizubange Town publishes hours of 9:00 to 16:00 from April through November. It closes on Mondays (the next day instead when Monday is a public holiday), on the day after a public holiday unless that falls at a weekend, and from 1 December to 31 March for winter. Enquiries: 0242-83-3010.
- How do I get to the Former Igarashi Family Residence in Aizubange from the nearest station?
- Tōdera Station on the JR Tadami Line is the closest, about fifteen to twenty minutes on foot. Drivers can reach the site in roughly five minutes from the Aizu-Bange interchange on the Ban-etsu Expressway, or about fifteen minutes from the Niitsuru smart interchange. Parking is available on site.
- What makes the Former Igarashi Family Residence in Aizubange architecturally significant?
- It preserves early features that most farmhouses lost through modernisation: no ceilings in any room, an earth-based living floor with straw and matting laid on packed ground, and posts standing directly on rounded stones without a continuous sill beam. Ink writing on a beam strut dates it to 1729, and the family occupied it with little alteration until 1955.
- Is the Former Igarashi Family Residence in Aizubange on its original site?
- No. It came from Nakabiraizu in Aizubange Town, donated to the town by the Igarashi family. Full dismantling and repair began in fiscal 1994 and the relocation and restoration finished in fiscal 1997, with public opening from 1996. Seismic reinforcement boards were built into the earth walls following the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995.
- What else can I visit near the Former Igarashi Family Residence in Aizubange?
- Eryūji temple, known as Tachiki Kannon, is about sixty metres away and holds a thousand-armed Kannon carved from a single tree; it is one of the three Aizu Korori Kannon sites. Shinshimizu Hachiman Shrine is around 240 metres from the house. All three sit on the same rise and are comfortably seen in one visit.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Igarashi Family Residence (Aizubange Town, Kawanuma District, Fukushima Prefecture) / 旧五十嵐家住宅 |
|---|---|
| Location | 1466 Daimon, Tōdera, Aizubange Town, Kawanuma District, Fukushima Prefecture |
| Designation | Important Cultural Property (structure), designation number 01786 |
| Year Designated | 11 March 1971 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | 16.3 m frontage by 8.0 m depth per the national database (7.9 m per Cultural Heritage Online); 8.5 by 3.5 bays and 117.19 sq m of floor area per Aizubange Town. Hipped roof, thatched |
| Owner | Aizubange Town |
| Public Access | Open, admission free. 9:00 to 16:00, April to November. Closed Mondays, the day after public holidays, and 1 December to 31 March. Enquiries: Aizubange Town Board of Education, 0242-83-3010 |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs — Former Igarashi Family Residence (Aizubange Town)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/102/220
- Cultural Heritage Online, Agency for Cultural Affairs — Former Igarashi Family Residence (Aizubange Town)
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/192880
- Aizubange Town — Former Igarashi Family Residence (cultural property page)
- https://www.town.aizubange.fukushima.jp/soshiki/30/279.html
- Aizubange Town — Sightseeing and Culture
- https://www.town.aizubange.fukushima.jp/soshiki/29/268.html
- Fukushima Prefecture Tourism and Local Products Association — Former Igarashi Family Residence (Aizubange)
- https://www.tif.ne.jp/jp/entry/article.html?spot=826
Last verified: 2026.08.25