Asahi Beer Oyamazaki Villa Museum of Art Main Building

A Half-Timbered Country House

The Asahi Beer Oyamazaki Villa Museum of Art Main Building (アサヒビール大山崎山荘美術館本館) is the main house of a villa with Jacobean-style interiors of the early Taisho period in Oyamazaki, Oyamazaki Town, Otokuni District, Kyoto Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on July 23, 2004 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Agency records a reinforced-concrete and timber building of 3 storeys and a basement with an iron-sheet roof and a building area of 372 square metres; registration number 26-0176.

A Half-Timbered Three-Storey House

Oyamazaki Villa, on the slopes of Mount Tenno in Oyamazaki, Kyoto Prefecture, was the country house of the Kansai businessman Kaga Shotaro (1888-1954); 6 structures built from the Taisho to the early Showa period, among them the main house, a tea room, a teahouse, a garage, a lookout tower and a tunnel, are registered (Agency for Cultural Affairs; museum).

The main building was the house of Kaga Shotaro's villa, built in the early Taisho period and extended in 1927 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Of reinforced concrete and timber, roofed in iron sheet shaped like tile, it joins a single-storey part under a steep gabled roof and a three-storey half-timbered part in a T-shaped plan.

The Agency describes it as a building of high quality, with a varied exterior and rich interiors in a Jacobean-based style. It is now the main building of the Asahi Group Oyamazaki Villa Museum of Art, to which galleries designed by Ando Tadao were later added (museum).

Why It Was Registered

The Agency registered it as a model of design.

What to Look For

At the main building, look for the half-timbered three-storey exterior and the Jacobean-style interiors (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Visiting

The main building, the Saigetsuan tea room and the Tochinoki teahouse are owned by Asahi Group Japan, Ltd., and the former garage, the Seikaro tower and the Rokando tunnel by Kyoto Prefecture (Agency for Cultural Affairs). According to the Asahi Group Oyamazaki Villa Museum of Art, it opens from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (last entry 4:30 p.m.) and is closed on Mondays (Tuesday if Monday is a holiday), on occasional days and over the New Year; it is about 10 minutes on foot from JR Yamazaki and Hankyu Oyamazaki stations. The 6 structures are introduced together on the Oyamazaki Villa page.