The Building Itself
The Former Morita Family Residence Main House is a single storey timber dwelling of the late Meiji era, built between 1898 and 1912 at Usaida in Noichicho, Konan City, Kochi Prefecture, and registered as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 6 March 2024. It covers 206 square metres under a tiled roof.
The site sits in a village of rice fields on the eastern side of the Kochi Plain. Its neighbours are farmhouses, and at first glance this is another one. The entrance says otherwise. A Shikidai entrance, the raised boarded threshold of a formal reception, pushes forward from the centre of the south front, and above it a second hipped and gabled roof stacks over the first, announcing without ambiguity which side of the building is the front.
Konan City owns it. Of the six registered structures on the site, this is the one at the centre of what the city preserves as the birthplace of the psychiatrist Morita Masatake.
The Only One of the Six Listed as a Model of Design
Japan's register of tangible cultural properties works from several criteria. Five of the six structures registered here on the same day, the storehouse, the front gate, the heijumon gate, the side gate and the earthen wall, were entered as contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The Former Morita Family Residence Main House was entered under a different heading: as a model of design.
That phrase means the building is held up as an exemplar of how its period and region built. The national database calls it a modern Japanese style dwelling carrying the formality of a samurai household. A landed farming family borrowed the vocabulary of the warrior class and put it to work on its own house, and the borrowing holds together without strain. That is what the assessors rewarded.
Its register number is 39-0309, the lowest of the six.
A Plan That Changes Character Halfway Across
The interest of this building lies in a plan with two personalities. The western half follows the cross partition arrangement of four rooms that farmhouses across Japan use. The eastern half abandons it for a sequence of formal Zashiki rooms, with deep Ranma carvings filling the transoms above the sliding partitions. Daily life and the reception of guests are separated by a single line of screens.
Look up under the Geya, the lean-to roof over the Engawa veranda. The purlins there are whole logs left in the round rather than squared timber. Nothing is dressed down to a neat rectangle; the size of the material is the point. When the register calls the work robust, this is what it means.
The shikidai was originally the board a guest stepped onto when leaving a palanquin at a samurai gate. Finding one at the front of a farming household tells you most of what you need to know about the Former Morita Family Residence Main House.
Seeing the Main House
The Former Morita Family Residence Main House stands well inside the compound and is not open on a regular basis. The interior is normally closed. What faces the public road is the line of front gate, earthen wall and side gate; the house sits behind them, and no complete view of it can be had from outside.
To enter the grounds, or to photograph within them, contact the Cultural Promotion and Protection Section of the Konan City Board of Education, Lifelong Learning Division, at the Cultural Properties Centre, telephone 0887-54-2296. The city ran an open session at the buildings on 3 February 2024 and announces any further openings itself.
Directions to the compound and the general conditions of visiting are set out on the Former Morita Family Residence page. Details confirmed on 13 September 2026.
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Q&A
- Can I visit the Former Morita Family Residence Main House, and are there opening hours or an admission fee?
- There are none, because the building is not run as a visitor attraction. The interior and the grounds are normally closed. To arrange a visit, contact the Cultural Promotion and Protection Section of the Konan City Board of Education on 0887-54-2296.
- When was the Former Morita Family Residence Main House built?
- The national register places it in the late Meiji era, between 1898 and 1912. It was registered as a cultural property on 6 March 2024.
- Why was the Former Morita Family Residence Main House registered?
- It was entered as a model of design. Of the six structures registered on this site, the main house is the only one listed under that criterion, as a modern Japanese style house that carries samurai formality into a farming village.
- Is the Former Morita Family Residence Main House the actual building Morita Masatake was born in?
- Probably not. The register dates the standing building to the late Meiji era, more than twenty years after Morita was born in 1874. Konan City calls the compound his birthplace, but the fabric you see today is later than his birth.
- How large is the Former Morita Family Residence Main House?
- It covers 206 square metres, single storey, timber framed and tile roofed, with the shikidai entrance projecting from the middle of the south front.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Morita Family Residence Main House |
|---|---|
| Location | 482-1 Kobayashidani, Usaida, Noichicho, Konan City, Kochi Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Building) |
| Year Designated | Registered 6 March 2024 (Reiwa 6) |
| Quantity | 1 structure |
| Dimensions | Building area 206 square metres |
| Owner | Konan City |
| Public Access | Not open to the public. Enquire with the Konan City Board of Education to enter the grounds |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database: Former Morita Family Residence Main House
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00014966
- Kochi Prefecture: National Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (Buildings), Cities 1 of 2
- https://www.pref.kochi.lg.jp/doc/2024031100056/
- Konan City: Former Morita Family Residence (birthplace of Morita Masatake)
- https://www.city.kochi-konan.lg.jp/soshikikarasagasu/kyoikuiinkaishogaigakushuka/rekishi_bunkazai/2/2582.html
- Konan City: Report to the 111th regular session of the Konan City Assembly
- https://www.city.kochi-konan.lg.jp/material/files/group/2/202403_syohann_houkoku.pdf
- Cultural Heritage Online: Former Morita Family Residence Main House
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/594456
Last verified: 2026.09.13
