Nishi Kenban Office

An Office and Rehearsal Hall for Kanazawa Geisha

The Nishi Kenban Office (西検番事務所) is a rehearsal hall and office for geisha of 1922 in Nomachi, Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on July 1, 2003 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Agency records a two-storey timber building with a tiled roof and a building area of 501 square metres; registration number 17-0081.

A Western Office and a Japanese Rehearsal Hall

The Nishi Kenban Office stands south of the Saigawa Bridge and was built as a rehearsal hall and management office for geisha (Agency for Cultural Affairs). A kenban is the office that arranges geisha engagements and lessons.

It consists of a Western-style office wing and, across a courtyard, a two-storey timber rehearsal wing in Japanese style (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The office wing is a clapboarded two-storey timber building under a hipped roof of pantiles, marked by an entrance porch with decorative bargeboards of a kind popular in the Meiji period.

Why It Was Registered

The Agency values its pairing of a Western office wing with a Japanese rehearsal wing and its bargeboarded porch, and registered it as a model of design.

What to Look For

Look for the clapboarded office wing and its porch with decorative bargeboards (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Visiting

It is owned by the Nishi ryotei association (Agency for Cultural Affairs). No official information on public access was found.