Tajika Family Residence Main House

The house at the centre

The Tajika Family Residence Main House (田近家住宅主屋, Tajika-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) in Nishikoya, Amagasaki City, Hyogo Prefecture, is the principal dwelling of the Tajika family, a late Edo-period house remodelled into its present form around 1887, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on April 28, 2009 (number 28-0386).

The Tajika Family Residence Main House stands in the middle of the grounds and faces south, toward the gatehouse on the southern edge of the plot. The clothing storehouse is joined to its northeast corner by a covered kuramae passage, and the tool, oil and rice storehouses line the west side. The gate and the three storehouses are all placed around it.

A big single-storey house with a loft

This is a large house: 19 metres by 12 metres, with a building area of 239 m². The Agency for Cultural Affairs lists it as a single-storey wooden building, but its description points to a tsushi-nikai, the low half-storey tucked under the roof that is common in old houses around Osaka, and Amagasaki City likewise describes a small upper floor.

The roof is laid with pantiles. Its west end is hipped and gabled in the irimoya manner, its east end a plain kirizuma gable, and pent roofs run around the lower walls. A tea room, a Buddhist altar room and other rooms were added from the east end of the front round to the east side, which is why several roofs crowd together over that corner. The tea-room wing is dated to around 1915.

The walls are finished in black plaster.

A headman's bearing

The Agency sums up the Tajika Family Residence Main House as dignified in appearance and still carrying the air of a shōya household, the family that managed village affairs under the Edo-period system. The dark walls and the stacked, many-angled roof give it a weight that fits that role.

Several periods sit in this one building: a late Edo house, a remodelling around 1887 and a tea room added in the Taisho era. Amagasaki City dates the remodelling of the gatehouse to the same years, so the house and the entrance that faced the street seem to have been brought up to date together.

Visiting

The Tajika Family Residence Main House is a private home and is not open to the public. Because it stands in the middle of the grounds, it is hard to see as a whole from the road, and visitors cannot enter the property.

The background of the estate, what can be seen from the street and directions are on the Tajika Family Residence page.