Goto Family Residence Detached House

A tea-room annex at the back of the garden

The Goto Family Residence Detached House (後藤家住宅離れ) in Akutami, Gifu City, Gifu Prefecture, is a small guest annex of the Goto family compound, built in the early Taisho era (between 1912 and 1918), moved to its present site in 1970, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on February 4, 2021 (number 21-0287).

The Goto Family Residence Detached House lies west of the main house across the garden, joined to it by a covered corridor. It is the building farthest from the road, a quiet space set aside for receiving guests.

An eight-mat room and a tea room

The Goto Family Residence Detached House is a single-storey timber building running north to south under a gabled, pantiled roof (Sangawara-buki). A lean-to roof of sheet iron along the east side shelters a veranda, and the outer walls are clad in vertical boards. Its building area is just 22 m².

Inside there are only two rooms: an eight-mat Zashiki reception room to the south, and to the north a four-and-a-half-mat Chashitsu tea room with its Mizuya preparation area. It is a building made for one purpose, to receive a guest and serve tea.

Patterned shoji and a wave-shaped sliding window

The appeal of the Goto Family Residence Detached House is in the joinery, which the Agency for Cultural Affairs calls refined sukiya-style work. The latticework of the shoji screens is set in wickerwork and checkerboard patterns rather than a plain grid.

The musōmado, a window of vertical slats in two layers that opens and closes when one layer slides across the other, is shaped here like an undulating wave transom. In so small a building, the fittings carry most of the design.

The Goto Family Residence Detached House was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. Even after being moved, it keeps its role as the secluded reception room at the back of the compound, linked to the main house by its corridor.

Visiting

The Goto Family Residence Detached House sits at the very back of the compound. Its interior is closed and it cannot be seen from the road.

The story of the compound, what can be seen from the road and directions are on the Goto Family Residence page.