Matsumoto Sake Brewery Mangyoin

The Brewer's House

Matsumoto Sake Brewery Mangyoin (松本酒造万暁院, Mangyōin) is a single-storey Japanese-style residence in Emisakecho, Fushimi Ward, Kyoto City, built around 1954 and listed as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 8 July 2008. It is roofed in hongawara tiles with some copper sheeting, covers 255 square metres, and its enclosing wall is included in the listing.

Kyoto City records that Mangyoin was built as the Matsumoto family's home. The company describes it as a house in the sukiya manner that has also served as a guesthouse for visitors. It belongs to a different world from the storehouses and brickwork along the river: this is where the brewing family lived and entertained.

Of the seven registered buildings at Matsumoto, Mangyoin is the only one listed for setting a standard in design. The other six were registered for their contribution to the historic landscape.

Two Wings in Echelon

The house stands on the north side of its garden. A reception wing lies to the south and a living wing to the east, offset diagonally from one another in the staggered, flying-geese arrangement known as gankō. A tea room and the entrance hall at the north-west tie the two together.

All the roofs are hip-and-gable in heavy tile, with pent eaves running round them. Only the entrance is different: a softly curved karahafu gable, sheeted in copper. Among the tiled roofs, that copper curve tells you exactly where to go in.

The reception rooms have formal alcove fittings. The irigawa, the corridor that wraps the rooms on the garden side, is floored with square tiles laid on the diagonal. Tatami rooms meeting a tiled corridor create a band of space that belongs half to the house and half to the garden.

Timber from a Zen Temple

Kyoto City's citation pays particular attention to materials. The entrance, with its curved gable, reuses old timber from the entrance of Shoden-in, a sub-temple of Kennin-ji dating back to the early Edo period. Shoden-in was the temple revived in his last years by Oda Urakusai, younger brother of Oda Nobunaga and a noted tea master. The Main Gate, moved and reworked in the same years as Mangyoin was built, is also said to have come from Shoden-in.

Beyond the salvaged timber, Kyoto City notes carefully chosen material throughout. The south garden holds an Oribe-style stone lantern and other stonework, and a dry landscape laid out with Kurama and Kibune stones, both prized varieties quarried in the hills north of Kyoto.

Kyoto City calls it a notable piece of post-war Japanese architecture; the Agency for Cultural Affairs listed it as a fine example of modern Japanese-style building. Its value lies apart from the brewery: a serious traditional house, built in the lean years after the war, that joins temple timber to hand-picked new material.

Visiting Mangyoin

Mangyoin is private. It was built as a family house, it sits behind a wall, and neither the interior nor the garden is open. Matsumoto does not offer brewery tours either.

From outside you see only parts of the tiled hip-and-gable roofs above the wall. The staggered wings, the curved entrance gable and the tiled corridor cannot be seen from the street. The Main Gate, also in Emisakecho, faces the road, and standing in front of it is the best way to take in this side of the site. Photographs are taken from the public road.