Former Ueda Family Residence Main House

About the Former Ueda Family Residence Main House

The Former Ueda Family Residence Main House (旧上田家住宅主屋, Kyū Ueda-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a single-story wooden farmhouse in Kaidecho, Muko City, Kyoto Prefecture, built in 1910 and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on March 29, 2019. Around 1942 it was moved about 190 meters west to its present site, after a new line planned by the national railways claimed the family's original plot.

The Former Ueda Family Residence Main House stands at the center of the plot, facing south. Its gabled roof (a Kirizuma-zukuri form) is covered with interlocking pantiles, lean-to roofs (the Geya) run around all four sides, and a row of slatted Mushiko-mado windows opens above the front lean-to. The building area is 168 square meters.

Why the Main House Was Registered

The Ueda main house was registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that it follows the established form of a traditional Japanese farmhouse and calls it the core of the village's historic townscape.

The plan keeps to that form. The east half is an earthen-floored work area, the Doma, and the west half holds the living rooms, two at the front and two at the back. Muko City describes this as a modified four-room plan: along the south side, an eight-mat formal room and a four-mat anteroom; along the north, rooms of six and four and a half mats. Built at the end of the Meiji era and relocated in the early Shōwa years, the Former Ueda Family Residence Main House kept this arrangement through the move.

A Six-Burner Range and a Carefully Furnished Alcove

Behind the entrance lies the kitchen, where a cooking range with six fire mouths survives. Muko City describes it as built of black firebrick laid in the shape of a letter C, with an opening on the inner side for raking out ash. Six burners in one range point to a kitchen that cooked for many people at once.

No ceiling covers the kitchen. The roof framing, a Japanese-style Wagoya truss, is left open to view, with a smoke vent directly above the range. A sliding door on the north side leads out to the back garden and the annex.

The formal room occupies the southwest corner, with a Tokonoma alcove, staggered shelves, and a Buddhist altar room set along its west wall. The materials were picked with care: the alcove post is a knotted, textured cedar log, the alcove's front edge is black persimmon, and its floorboard is a single plank of zelkova. Sliding doors painted with scenes evoking the old capital of Nagaoka-kyō, a gift from the former owners, greet visitors inside.

Seeing the Main House

The interior of the Former Ueda Family Residence Main House is open to visitors free of charge. The tatami rooms and the kitchen with its range can also be rented for a fee, so on some days a talk or event will be under way. The city treats rentals as open use and visitors may still pass nearby, but whether you can step up into the tatami rooms depends on the day's bookings.

For the full facade, stand in the front garden just inside the middle gate. From there the slatted windows above the front lean-to and the low eaves running around the house are easy to read. The city's pages do not say whether photography is allowed, so ask at the reception. Opening days and directions are on the Former Ueda Family Residence (Muko) page.