What tatami-rōka means
A tatami-rōka is a corridor floored with tatami. It runs around a formal reception room, linking it with the outer veranda, or serves as the passage leading guests from the entrance to the reception rooms. Softer underfoot than a boarded corridor, it is treated as a refined space continuous with the reception room.
A tatami-floored passage around the outside of a reception room may also be recorded as an Irigawa. The tatami corridor can serve as part of a large room, and with its sliding doors opened it merges with the reception room into one space. It was widely used in large modern residences and in the banquet halls of restaurants and inns.
Reading the records and the building
Records often mention it together with the veranda. At the Arai family house in Izumisano, Osaka, the inner reception wing has a tatami corridor and veranda around its high-ceilinged reception room, opening the view across the garden, and the entrance and reception wing has a tatami corridor and veranda along the south and east of the room behind the entrance. The banquet hall wing of the Yatsusankan inn in Hida, Gifu, has a first-floor hall recorded as a hundred mats including its tatami corridor, which is counted as part of the room. The Ōshukutei at the Gamagori Classic Hotel in Aichi leads from the entrance through a tatami corridor and anteroom to the guest room.
On site, look for a tatami-floored passage between the reception room and the veranda; often it becomes one space with the room when the sliding doors are removed.
References
- 新井家住宅奥座敷｜国指定文化財等データベース（文化庁）
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00001201
- 新井家住宅玄関・座敷｜国指定文化財等データベース（文化庁）
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00001200
- 八ツ三館大広間棟｜文化遺産オンライン
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/182596
- 蒲郡クラシックホテル鶯宿亭（旧常磐館別館茶室）｜文化遺産オンライン
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/584026
Last verified: 2026.09.27