Fujita Family Residence Main House

What Is the Fujita Family Residence Main House?

The Fujita Family Residence Main House (藤田家住宅主屋, Fujita-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a weaving family's townhouse in Yamana-cho, Kamigyo Ward, Kyoto, built in the early Meiji period (1868 to 1882) and remodeled in 1935, and it was entered on the register of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2015.

It is two buildings standing shoulder to shoulder on the street. The east wing, five and a half ken wide (a ken is the traditional bay of about six feet), has the look of a classic Kyoto Machiya, with Mushiko-mado slatted windows cut in a quatrefoil outline. The west wing, two and a half ken wide, is less than half as wide and opens at the front into a reception room. Together they cover 280 square meters, which is very large for a Kyoto townhouse, and parts rise to three stories.

The east wing is the old house where the family lived and did business. The west wing was added in the early Showa years for one purpose: receiving guests.

Why It Was Registered

The Fujita Family Residence Main House was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on March 26, 2015 (registration number 26-0466), for its contribution to the historic landscape of the country.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a high-quality house that reflects both the prosperity of Nishijin, Kyoto's silk-weaving district, and the growth of townhouses to a larger scale. Two features carry that judgment. The reception room at the front of the west wing blends the refined, rustic vocabulary of the tea-house style known as Sukiya-zukuri with Western design. And the living quarters behind it line up rooms in deliberately different moods, some in the sukiya manner and some in the formal Shoin-zukuri manner.

The family describes the west wing as a detached reception wing for a weaving house, built with carefully chosen timber and craftsmen. Set beside the conservative east wing, it shows how clearly the household divided business and hospitality.

Highlights Inside

An Art Deco Parlor with a Woven Ceiling

The Western-style parlor at the south end of the west wing keeps its early Showa fittings. A lamp hangs from a woven Ajiro-tenjō ceiling of split wood, the fireplace is faced in tile, and the windows hold hand-blown glass. The carpet was woven for this room, and the chairs and table are original. Look up before you look around: a Japanese woven ceiling over an Art Deco room is exactly the blend of sukiya and Western taste the national record singles out.

A Light Well More Than 8 Meters High

Between the parlor and the tatami rooms, a void rises through three levels to a skylight, more than 8 meters overhead. One explanation is that the weavers needed bright daylight to inspect cloth; another is simply that it lights the rooms and stairs around it. The tall wall running up to the third floor was recently restored over six months as a burnished clay finish, and in summer the paper screens facing the void are swapped for reed screens.

Two Tatami Rooms, Two Characters

On the ground floor of the Fujita Family Residence Main House, a six-mat room leads to an eight-mat room. The first is in the sukiya manner: a red pine log for the alcove post, polished cedar logs for the pillars, a Nageshi rail around the walls, and a ceiling of straight-grained red cedar. A half mat can be added so that a sunken hearth can be opened for tea. The inner room switches to square cypress posts, with a Tokonoma alcove, low cupboards and a built-in writing desk (Tsukeshoin), under a paulownia ceiling. Its door pulls are attributed to Nakagawa Jōeki, one of the ten hereditary craft families who serve the Sen schools of tea.

Walk from one room to the other and the pillars change from round to square. That small shift is the whole design idea of the house in miniature.

According to the family, some cupboard pulls were shaped like the shuttle that carries the weft across a loom. In summer the sliding doors between the rooms come out, bamboo blinds go up, and rattan matting is laid over the tatami.

Seeing the Fujita Family Residence Main House

The interior of the Fujita Family Residence Main House can be entered only on a reserved tour led by the head of the family. If there is a room you especially want to see, such as the parlor or the light well, mention it when you book. The house is built of wood, earth and paper, so visitors are asked to keep bags away from walls and sliding doors, stay off the alcove, and avoid treading on mat edges and sills.

Without a booking you can still study the east wing's street front. Stand a little to one side rather than dead center, and the quatrefoil shape of the slatted windows and the depth of the plaster around them read much more clearly. The west wing sits back behind its gate and fence, so from the street only its roof and part of the upper floor are visible.