A 1924 House on the Ground of Japan's First Housing Exposition
Imato-ke Jutaku (今戸家住宅, the Imato Family Residence, also written Imatoke Jūtaku) is a two-storey timber house at Sakuragaoka 2-7-26 in Minoh City, Osaka Prefecture, built in 1924 and entered on Japan's register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 16 January 1998.
Two years before it went up, this hillside had been a construction site of an unusual kind. Between 21 September and 26 November 1922, the Architectural Association of Japan staged the Jutaku Kaizo Hakurankai, the Housing Improvement Exposition, across roughly fourteen hectares of newly cut suburban land. Twenty-five full-size houses were built and opened to the public. Visitors walked through finished rooms, not models. More than seventy thousand people came, and the run was extended past its planned closing date.
The houses were then sold, furnished, together with their plots. Anyone who has walked through a modern Japanese housing display park has been through the descendant of this event. The developer behind the land, the real estate division of a fragrance manufacturer, had invited the exposition partly to accelerate sales on a site it was still clearing.
Imato-ke Jutaku was not one of the twenty-five. It was built afterwards, on the same estate and in the same spirit, which is why the Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as one of the early houses of a district developed during the Taisho era.
Amerika-ya and the Case for Registration
The register credits the design to Okudo Daizo and the construction to Amerika-ya, and that second name carries most of the historical weight. Amerika-ya was founded in 1909 by Hashiguchi Shinsuke (1879 to 1928), who had spent years working his way through a string of jobs in the United States and came home with six knock-down bungalows in his luggage. Standardised timber members, cut to size and assembled on site: the logic that later produced prefabrication and platform framing in Japan starts here. The company launched a magazine, Jutaku, in 1915 to argue its case in print, and in 1916 the Waseda graduate Yamamoto Setsuro joined and eventually became chief engineer.
What Amerika-ya sold was not an American house transplanted intact. It was a bungalow logic adapted to Japanese living, and contemporaries had a name for the result: the Amerika-ya style. The Agency for Cultural Affairs cites Imato-ke Jutaku as a good example of exactly that adaptation, noting the Spanish-influenced exterior that combines Japanese and Western elements.
The registration criterion applied was the first of the three available, that the building serves as a model of design. Registration number is 27-0033, gazetted on 12 February 1998. Registration is a lighter category than designation: unlike a National Treasure or an Important Cultural Property, a registered building is protected through a notification system rather than a permit system, which suits a house that people still live in.
One line in the official record deserves attention. The roof is listed as asphalt-clad. Asphalt shingle was an American product, unusual in Japan in 1924, and its presence on a 94-square-metre house in suburban Osaka says a good deal about how directly Amerika-ya was importing not just plan types but materials.
Walking Sakuragaoka
Ninety-four square metres of building area is worth pausing on. This is a compact house, built for a salaried middle-class household rather than a magnate, and that is the point. The 1922 exposition was aimed squarely at the new white-collar class that had taken shape during the Taisho years, and its programme included chair-height dining rooms, individual bedrooms for family members, flush lavatories and south-facing terraces, all of which read as ordinary now and read as arguments then.
The district went through a hard passage after 1945. In August and September 1946, thirteen of the twenty-five exposition houses were requisitioned for Occupation personnel. Original residents moved out and were barred from taking furniture with them. When the requisitions were lifted in 1952, only five households returned to their own houses; interiors had been repainted, alcoves removed, tatami rooms converted. Attrition since then has been steady, and the number of surviving exposition houses has fallen into single figures.
What remains is protected as much by the streets as by the buildings. Minoh City has designated part of Sakuragaoka as an urban landscape formation district, and the hedges, natural stone retaining walls and open side channels along the property lines are as much a part of the character as the houses themselves. Locals call the route the Sakuragaoka Yokan-dori, the Western House Street.
Imato-ke Jutaku is a private home and is not open to visitors. There is no interior access and no scheduled opening. Reaching the area is simple enough: from Sakurai Station on the Hankyu Minoh Line, walk north along Tamurabashi-dori for about ten minutes and up the slope. Photograph from the public road, keep your voice down, and stay off the driveways. These are occupied houses on a quiet residential hill, and the people living in them have carried the maintenance burden that kept the place standing.
- 📍 Plan Your Visit to Osaka
- Find tours, activities & transport passes near Imato Family Residence
- [ USJ Tickets Osaka Castle & Dotonbori Food Tours ]
Q&A
- Can you visit Imato-ke Jutaku or go inside?
- No. Imato-ke Jutaku is a private residence with no public opening and no interior access. The exterior can be seen from the public road in Sakuragaoka. Visitors should keep to the roadway and avoid entering private land or disturbing residents.
- When was Imato-ke Jutaku built, and who designed it?
- It was built in 1924, the thirteenth year of the Taisho era. The national register credits the design to Okudo Daizo and the construction to Amerika-ya, the housing company founded in 1909 by Hashiguchi Shinsuke that introduced American bungalow construction to Japan.
- What is the connection between Imato-ke Jutaku and the 1922 Housing Improvement Exposition?
- The house stands on the exposition site but was not one of the twenty-five houses exhibited in 1922. It was built two years later on the same estate, which is why the Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as one of the early houses of this Taisho-era development.
- How do you get to the Imato-ke Jutaku area from the nearest station?
- Take the Hankyu Minoh Line to Sakurai Station, then walk north along Tamurabashi-dori for about ten minutes, climbing the slope onto the Sakuragaoka plateau. Makiochi Station on the same line is a comparable walk from the east.
- What architectural style is Imato-ke Jutaku?
- The national register describes a Spanish-influenced exterior combining Japanese and Western elements, built in what contemporaries called the Amerika-ya style: an American bungalow layout adapted to Japanese domestic use. The structure is timber over two storeys with an asphalt-clad roof and a building area of 94 square metres.
Basic Information
| Name | Imato-ke Jutaku (今戸家住宅), the Imato Family Residence |
|---|---|
| Location | Sakuragaoka 2-7-26, Minoh City, Osaka Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure), registration number 27-0033 |
| Year Designated | Registered 16 January 1998; gazetted 12 February 1998 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Timber, two storeys, asphalt-clad roof; building area 94 square metres |
| Owner | Not recorded in the national register; privately held |
| Public Access | Private residence, not open. Exterior visible from the public road |
References
- National Database of Designated Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs — Imato-ke Jutaku
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00000452
- Wikipedia — Amerika-ya
- https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/あめりか屋
- Wikipedia — Jutaku Kaizo Hakurankai (Housing Improvement Exposition)
- https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/住宅改造博覧会
- LIFULL HOME'S PRESS — The Taisho Housing Improvement Exposition houses of Sakuragaoka, Minoh
- https://www.homes.co.jp/cont/press/reform/reform_00601/
- Minoh City — Landscape Important Structures
- https://www.city.minoh.lg.jp/machi/keikan/jyuuyoukennzoubutu.html
Last verified: 2026.08.19