Miyamura Family Residence Main Building

A Large Farmhouse on the Kikuchi Plain

Miyamura Family Residence Main Building (宮村家住宅主屋, also written Miyamura-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a wooden farmhouse of the early Taishō era in the Nishidera district of Kikuchi City, Kumamoto Prefecture, entered on Japan's national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 21 June 2013. The building dates to roughly 1912 to 1918 and covers 364 square metres of ground.

It faces south across open rice fields. A single storey, a hipped roof of sangawara pantiles, and a low geya lean-to running all the way around the four sides: the profile is broad and horizontal, closer to a long low ridge than to a house with a front and a back. That encircling lean-to does practical work. It keeps summer rain off the sliding panels and gives every room a shaded threshold onto the garden.

Kikuchi lies in northern Kumamoto, on alluvial land watered by the Kikuchi River. Families here farmed rice and held woodland in the hills behind. The Miyamura house belongs to that pattern of landholding, and the timber in it came from the household's own mountain forest rather than from a merchant's yard.

Why the House Was Registered

The Agency for Cultural Affairs registered the main building under registration number 43-0124 in the 75th round of registrations, on the criterion that it contributes to the historic landscape of the nation. Its companion structure on the same plot, the stone wall along the southern boundary, was registered on the same day as 43-0125.

Japan's registration system for buildings began in 1996 and works differently from designation as an Important Cultural Property. Registration rests on notification rather than permission: owners must inform the authorities before altering a registered structure substantially, and in return receive advice and limited financial support. The system was built for the enormous stock of Meiji, Taishō and Shōwa buildings that were disappearing before anyone had assessed them. A working farmhouse still lived in by the family that built it is exactly the case the framework was drawn up to catch.

What the assessors singled out is the quality of the material and the joinery. Selecting prized timber from one's own hillside was a privilege of the substantial rural households, and using it lavishly in a house of this size, rather than selling it, was a statement of standing that everyone in the district would have read correctly.

The Beams Above the Doma, the Aso Peaks Above the Zashiki

Two features carry the interior.

The first is structural. Toward the east end of the plan sits a wide doma, the earth-floored working space where a farm household threshed, cooked and kept tools. Above it the roof framing is left open to view, and the beams are heavy, curved and unconcealed. Walking in from bright fields, the eye takes a moment to adjust before the whole web of timber resolves overhead.

The second is decorative. In the zashiki, the formal reception room, the ranma transom panels above the sliding doors are carved with the Five Peaks of Aso, the volcanic skyline that closes off the horizon to the southeast of Kikuchi. The gesture is worth pausing over: a household with fine wood of its own chose to spend it on a portrait of the mountains its stone wall was also quarried from.

Visiting requires care. The Miyamura residence is a private home, and no public opening hours or admission fee have been announced for it. The stone wall and the roofline are visible from the public road that runs along the south side of the property, and that view is the appropriate one for a traveller to take; entering the grounds or photographing the interior is not possible without the owner's consent. Anyone planning a trip around registered buildings in the area should contact the Kikuchi City board of education in advance, since occasional openings of privately owned properties are arranged locally rather than advertised nationally.

Kikuchi City has had no railway since the Kumamoto Electric Railway closed its line beyond Miyoshi in February 1986. Arriving means a bus from Sakuramachi Bus Terminal in Kumamoto City to Kikuchi Plaza, roughly an hour and a quarter, and then a local taxi or car for the last few kilometres to Nishidera. Most visitors drive.