Sanada Family Residence Inner Room

A Formal Reception Wing Behind the Garden

The Sanada Family Residence Inner Room (眞田家住宅奥座敷, Sanada-ke Jūtaku Okuzashiki) is a single-storey reception wing built in 1928 southeast of the main house in the Sanada compound, Higashimachi, Mihara City, Hiroshima Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Building) on 4 February 2021. Okuzashiki means the inner, or rear, formal rooms: the part of a house set well back from the street where honored guests were received.

The Sanada Family Residence Inner Room is made up of two linked blocks. The east block has two rooms side by side running east to west; the west block has two rooms running north to south. Verandas along the north and south sides connect them all. The building area is 171 square meters, under a tiled roof with some copper. The wing was enlarged in 1963, though the database does not say which part was added.

Why It Was Registered

The wing was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a modern Japanese-style Zashiki with elaborate design and generous use of prized timber, and the Council for Cultural Affairs singles out the alcove arrangement of the great room as lavish.

It makes most sense alongside the guest house and tea house built the same year. The guest house mixes a Western parlor with tatami rooms; the tea house is a room for the tea ceremony. The Sanada Family Residence Inner Room is the traditional one, a set of rooms dressed with the full formal display of a Japanese reception hall. Together they show a merchant family of the early Shōwa era building a different room for each way of entertaining.

The Great Room

The heart of the Sanada Family Residence Inner Room is the great room in the east block. A Tokonoma display alcove occupies the east wall, and the staggered shelves of the Tokowaki turn the northeast corner in an L-shape rather than sitting in a straight line beside it. That corner turn gives the alcove unusual depth. On the south side, a built-in writing desk, the Tsukeshoin, projects toward the veranda, so all three elements of formal display are present.

The published records do not name the woods used for the alcove post or shelves. But when the national description goes out of its way to mention prized timber, the grain and color of those pieces are clearly what the builders wanted guests to notice.

The plan works as a sequence. A corridor leads north to the tea house and another leads south to the storehouse. Guests could be entertained in the great room, move north for tea, while the household drew utensils and furnishings from the storehouse to the south.

Visiting

The Sanada Family Residence Inner Room sits at the back of the compound and cannot be seen from the old Sanyo Road. It is private, the interior is closed, and we found no public opening as of September 2026.

The national database carries photographs of the exterior and of the great room, supplied by the Mihara City Board of Education, and these show the alcove arrangement clearly. Directions and general visiting notes are on the Sanada Family Residence page.