Former Kodera Family Stables (Nakayamatedori, Ikuta Ward,

A Brick Stable in a Kobe Garden

At the western edge of Sorakuen, a public garden in central Kobe, stands a two-story brick building that began life as a stable. Its corner tower, steep slate roof, and dormer windows suggest a small German country house rather than a place to keep horses. The Former Kodera Family Stable was designated an Important Cultural Property in 1970, and it is one of very few Western-style stable buildings still standing in Japan.

The building covers about 188 square meters. The ground floor was divided between a carriage room on one side and horse stalls on the other; the upper floor served as lodging for the grooms and coachmen who worked there.

The Kodera Family and the Garden

The garden around the stable was the private estate of Kodera Taijirō, a former samurai of the Sanda domain who became a successful businessman after the Meiji Restoration. He began laying out the grounds around 1885 and finished toward the end of the Meiji period. The name Sorakuen comes from a phrase in the Chinese classic the I Ching, and the property passed to the City of Kobe in 1941, after which it opened to the public.

The stable itself was built by Taijirō's son, Kodera Kenkichi, who later served as mayor of Kobe. Sources place its construction in the late Meiji years, generally around 1907 to 1910, while a local property register notes new construction in 1912. The design is attributed to Kawai Kōzō, an architect known as a leading figure of the German school in Japan and responsible for buildings such as the Kobe District Court.

Why It Was Designated

Stables rarely survive. They were utilitarian buildings, and once horses gave way to cars they were usually demolished or rebuilt. A purpose-built stable in masonry, designed by a notable architect and preserved largely intact, is unusual anywhere in Japan. Much of the Kodera estate burned during the air raids of the Second World War, yet this building came through, and it is among the few prewar structures left in the garden.

Its construction adds to the value. The ground floor is brick, while the second floor uses a timber frame infilled with brick, a hybrid method common in the Meiji-era Western buildings of Kobe. Together with the attached workshop, the original drawings (66 sheets), and the construction documents listed in the 1981 supplementary designation, the building offers an unusually complete record of how such a structure was planned and made.

What to Look For

The plan is L-shaped, and the most striking feature sits at the inner corner: a round tower housing a spiral staircase. Above it rises a steep hipped roof punctuated by dormer windows and decorated with gable ornaments, the kind of varied silhouette you would expect on a German farmhouse rather than a Kobe outbuilding.

Stone framing around the doorways and windows breaks up the red brick and gives the walls a sense of weight. On the east side, the horse stalls open into a tall space with an exposed ceiling, a clue to the building's first job. Step back toward the garden's open lawn and the whole composition reads as a single picturesque object, which was clearly part of the architect's intention.

The building is normally viewed from the outside. The interior is opened only on occasion, sometimes for exhibitions, so check ahead if you hope to see it.

Around the Garden

Sorakuen is a pond-and-stroll garden of nearly 20,000 square meters, and the stable is one stop among several. The grounds hold two more Important Cultural Properties: the Former Hassam House, the wooden residence of a British trader moved here from Kobe's Kitano district, and the Funayakata, the relocated cabin of a feudal lord's pleasure boat. A zelkova main gate, a cycad garden, and a camphor tree said to be around 500 years old round out the visit. Azaleas peak in late April, and maples color the garden in autumn.

The garden sits a five-minute walk from Kenchō-mae Station on the Kobe Municipal Subway, and about ten minutes from Motomachi Station. From there it is a short distance to the Kitano foreign-residences district, Kobe's Chinatown, and the shops around Sannomiya.