Nagaoki Benkei

Reception Rooms from Kanazawa

Nagaoki Benkei (長沖弁慶) is a sukiya-style reception building of 1935 in Ataka-machi, Komatsu City, Ishikawa Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on November 17, 2015 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Benkei is the name of the building, now used for the dining rooms of the restaurant Nagaoki.

The Agency records a two-storey timber building with a tiled roof and a building area of 156 square metres, moved to its present site in 1979; registration number 17-0252.

Reception Rooms of a Kanazawa Textile Firm

Nagaoki Benkei was built in Oyama-machi, Kanazawa, as reception rooms for Ichimura Shoji, one of the leading textile firms of Ishikawa Prefecture, and also served as the company president's house (Komatsu City). A Munafuda ridge tablet dates it to 1935. Nagaoki bought it in 1979 and rebuilt it north of the restaurant's main house.

Ichimura Shoji began in 1894 as a private dealer in raw silk and habutae silk cloth, and after the war, as Ichimura Sangyo, it grew into the largest textile trading company in the prefecture (Komatsu City).

Why It Was Registered

The Agency registered Nagaoki Benkei as a model of design. It records two two-storey blocks set in a staggered line from east to west, with a hip-and-gable entrance in the middle of the east front; in the west block both floors have a pair of linked reception rooms wrapped by verandas, finished in the sukiya manner with refined alcove fittings and Ranma transoms.

Komatsu City regards Nagaoki Benkei as a finely designed sukiya house built by one of the prefecture's leading textile companies, and as a record of how the textile industry flourished in Ishikawa.

What to Look For

Because Nagaoki Benkei was built for entertaining, reception rooms take up most of the plan and there is almost no space for daily living (Komatsu City). Both floors have a pair of linked rooms on the west side, but the transoms, the small cupboards above the alcove shelves and the shoji are more elaborate upstairs, a difference that shows clearly when the two floors are compared.

The whole is in the sukiya manner, yet the staircase, the upper rooms and other details bring in elements of modern architecture (Komatsu City). On arrival, note the hip-and-gable entrance at the centre of the east front (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Visiting

Nagaoki Benkei is in use for the dining rooms of the working restaurant Nagaoki (Komatsu City). The interior can only be seen as a restaurant guest; no official information was found on whether the Benkei rooms can be requested or whether visits without a meal are accepted, so ask the restaurant about reservations and photography.