Pavilion Court (Former Yamanaka Partnership Art Museum) Western-Style Building

What Is the Pavilion Court Western-Style Building?

The Pavilion Court (Former Yamanaka Partnership Art Museum) Western-Style Building (パビリオンコート（旧山中合名会社美術館）洋館) is a brick showroom and storehouse for antique art, completed in 1920 in Awataguchi Sanjobocho, Higashiyama Ward, Kyoto City, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2003.

It was built by the Kyoto branch of the art dealer Yamanaka & Co., which had become independent in 1916 as Yamanaka Gomei Kaisha, to add a modern display hall to its Meiji-era wooden shop. The building is brick, two stories above ground with one basement level, and covers 198 square meters. It was designed by Ikemura Motonosuke and built by Shimizu-gumi, the firm now known as Shimizu Corporation.

Today it is the heart of the Pavilion Court venue. Its three rooms, Camellia on the ground floor, the skylit hall called Diana, and the Cellar in the basement, are used for weddings and concerts.

Why the Pavilion Court Western-Style Building Was Registered

The Western-Style Building of Pavilion Court became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, number 26-0158, on December 1, 2003, under the criterion of serving as a model of design.

What interests the Agency for Cultural Affairs is the way it was put together. The walls are load-bearing brick, while the floors are reinforced concrete beams and slabs. The agency calls the building a good example of early construction in reinforced concrete, and the operator describes it as one of the first reinforced concrete buildings in Kyoto.

Kyoto City adds a note on purpose. The building is said to have been meant both as a fire-resistant store for valuable stock and as a place to receive buyers from abroad. Both floors have coved and coffered ceilings, and the interior mixes Japanese, Western and Chinese motifs in a way the city calls unique. The Asian flavor of the rooms was most likely chosen with American and European clients in mind.

What to Look for in the Pavilion Court Western-Style Building

A tiled face over brick

The exterior was remodeled in 1936, when the walls above ground were faced with tile. That is the version you see from outside.

To see the brick, go in. Diana, the main hall, is enclosed by brick walls, and the operator says the room carries unamplified sound to the audience without help from a PA system.

The silk ceiling of Camellia

Camellia, on the ground floor, measures about 123 square meters (13 m by 9.5 m). According to the operator, its coved and coffered ceiling survives from 1920 and is lined throughout with arabesque-patterned silk by Tatsumura Textile, the Kyoto weaver known for reproducing textiles from the Shosoin treasure house in Nara. Two columns in the middle of the room carry reliefs of a phoenix and a winged horse in an East Asian style.

The walls are hung with hand-colored engravings of camellias, which gave the room its name, taken from a camellia album published between 1841 and 1843. A Japanese ceiling, Asian columns and European prints share one room here, and it is the clearest place in the building to see the mix of styles that Kyoto City singles out.

Diana and the Cellar

Diana is a hall of about 140 square meters (14.5 m by 9.5 m) with a ceiling 3.8 m high and a large skylight at its center. Daylight pours in from above in the afternoon; in the evening the room is lit by chandeliers. An open staircase runs up from the hall, which adds to the sense of space.

The Cellar, about 80 square meters in the basement, was the dealer's office and storeroom and has been refitted in the manner of an English pub. If the upper rooms were where buyers were entertained, this was the back office that kept the business running.

Visiting the Pavilion Court Western-Style Building

The interior of the Pavilion Court (Former Yamanaka Partnership Art Museum) Western-Style Building is not open on a regular basis. The rooms are rented out for weddings, concerts and exhibitions, so the realistic ways to see them are to book a venue tour or to attend a public event such as a concert. The operator notes that Camellia can be reached from the entrance without steps.

No official guidance on photography could be found, so ask when you book (checked October 2, 2026). Directions and the conditions for the site as a whole are on the Pavilion Court page.