Komachi Sake Brewery Detached Wing

A reception wing from the last year of Meiji

The Komachi Sake Brewery Detached Wing (小町酒造離れ, Komachi Shuzō Hanare) in Sohara Ibukicho, Kakamigahara City, Gifu Prefecture, is a single-storey reception wing built in 1912 on the grounds of the Komachi Sake Brewery, and it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 2008/04/18 (registration number 21-0161). It stands in the southwest of the plot, west of the shop and main house, with a garden on its south side.

The timber building has a hip-and-gable Irimoya-zukuri roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles and a building area of 66 square metres. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as modern Japanese-style architecture that borrows the lighter, more refined manner of Sukiya-zukuri.

Two rooms wrapped in verandas

Inside, two 8-mat tatami rooms run north to south, with a Tatami-rōka corridor along the east. On the south and north are Kure-en verandas, and outside those, on three sides, runs a lower open veranda (ochien). Layer by layer, the verandas ease the way from the rooms out to the garden.

The principal room has a Tokonoma alcove, staggered Chigaidana shelves and a built-in Tsukeshoin desk, and looks south over the garden. Alcove, shelves and desk are the standard furnishings of a formal reception room; set within a lighter sukiya manner, they suggest how a prosperous brewing family of late Meiji liked to receive its guests.

What to look at

The garden south of the Komachi Sake Brewery Detached Wing is closed in by the U-shaped gate and wall. On the garden side the wall is painted a red-brown Bengara, so from the rooms the garden is backed by a warm-toned wall rather than the black the compound shows the street.

The low hip-and-gable roof sits west of the 2-storey shop and main house, stepping down from the business front to the private rooms behind.

Visiting

The Komachi Sake Brewery Detached Wing is part of the family home and its interior is not open. The garden is walled, so the building cannot be seen up close from outside. Access to the grounds and directions are covered on the Komachi Sake Brewery page.