Restaurant Tokugetsuro Kiku Room

The Room Furthest In

Restaurant Tokugetsuro Kiku Room is a single-storey timber tatami room in Minamiharimayacho, Kochi City, built in 1957 and entered on the national register of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 25 February 2016. It covers 67 square metres under a gabled roof of pantiles.

It lies west of the Koyo room, reached by a short passage fitted with a storage closet. This is the deepest point of the site, and the house presents it as its quietest room. Coming from the main gate, a guest passes the main building, the connecting corridor and the Koyo room before arriving.

The room itself is 12 mats. An alcove and a tsukeshoin writing bay occupy the western side, and a veranda runs along the south toward the garden. Built in the same year as the Koyo room and facing the same garden, it was nonetheless given a different character.

Registered for the Contrast

Restaurant Tokugetsuro Kiku Room was registered under the criterion for design that sets a standard, with the number 39-0281, following directly on 39-0280 for the Koyo room next door.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs description says the Kiku room shows a design in contrast with the Koyo room. It is a phrasing that invites comparison, and the two rooms do in fact avoid repeating one another.

The clearest difference is the nageshi. This horizontal rail, which ties the posts together at head height, is absent here. In a formal shoin room the nageshi carries the sense of rank; take it away and the horizontal line disappears from the wall, and the room reads as softer. It is a sukiya move, and where the Koyo room presents a broad alcove and shelving with some ceremony, the Kiku room lets that formality go.

The writing bay differs too. In the Kiku room it turns an L and folds around into the space beside the alcove, rather than projecting outward with a round window as its neighbour does. It is set along the corner of the alcove instead of pushed toward the veranda.

The ceiling is boarded with Yanase cedar under slender saobuchi battens. The timber comes from the same mountains of eastern Kochi as the boards in the main building's banquet hall, but where that ceiling displays single lengths of exceptional size, this one holds plain boards in place with thin ribs. The same material, used according to what the room is for.

What to Look at in Twelve Mats

Entering Restaurant Tokugetsuro Kiku Room, look first at where the walls meet the posts. Once the missing nageshi registers, it becomes clear that nothing arrests the eye except the alcove wall. That is why the room feels larger than its floor area.

Then move around to the side of the alcove and follow the L of the writing bay: where the turn leads, and how the lattice of the paper screens continues around it, are better judged sitting down.

Look up and the battens run at even intervals, with the cedar grain moving between them. This is not timber chosen to impress by length. It is quiet boarding.

Step out onto the southern veranda and the garden is there. It is the same garden the Koyo room faces, but from further west, so the angle changes. Seeing one garden twice from two positions is how this site is put together.

Conditions for Visiting

Restaurant Tokugetsuro Kiku Room is in use as a dining room, listed on the official website among the rooms available, so a preference can be raised when booking. There is no sightseeing admission.

Standing at the far end of the site, it is visible neither from the street nor from inside the main gate. Photography is not addressed on the website, so anyone wanting to photograph the alcove or the ceiling should ask when reserving.

There are steps in the buildings; the house advises that wheelchairs may enter once the tyres are wiped. Opening hours and directions are gathered on the Restaurant Tokugetsuro site page.