Nagatani-en

What Nagatani-en is

Nagatani-en (長谷園) is an Iga ware pottery founded in 1832 in Marubashira, Iga City, Mie Prefecture, whose climbing kiln and 13 buildings became Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in two rounds, in 2011 and 2015. The business is run by Nagatani Seito Co., Ltd., and visitors will also see it signed as Iga-yaki no Sato Nagatani-en or Iga-yaki Kamamoto Nagatani-en.

The characters 長谷 are usually read "Hase", but here they are the family name Nagatani, and the company itself writes Nagatani-en in English. Marubashira is a small potters' village ringed by wooded hills, and several kilns still work there. Nagatani-en uses Iga clay, a coarse, highly fire-resistant body dug from the ancient lakebed deposits of the Kobiwako formation, and has made earthenware cooking pots for open flames since its early years. Its rice-cooking donabe are now sold across Japan.

From an 1832 kiln to a registered site

According to the company's own history, Nagatani Genji opened the kiln at Marubashira in 1832 as the first head of the house. By the third generation the business was hiring craftsmen from Kyoto and elsewhere, and the fourth generation reorganized it as a firm that sold as well as made. In 1963 the sixth head, Nagatani Shozo, incorporated Nagatani Seito Co., Ltd.

The climbing kiln on the slope behind the buildings was fired until the Showa 40s (1965 to 1974), the company says. In 1999 Nagatani-en opened its Iga main shop inside the Marubashira head-office grounds and began fitting out rest areas and exhibition rooms for visitors. Old workshops and storehouses were turned into galleries from that point on.

The first two properties, the former office known as the Taishokan and the climbing kiln, were registered on 28 October 2011 (registration nos. 24-0118 and 24-0119). In November 2014 the Council for Cultural Affairs recommended twelve more, beginning with the main house, and they were registered on 26 March 2015 (nos. 24-0190 to 24-0201). All 14 were registered under the same criterion, as structures that contribute to the historic landscape of the country. Iga City presents them together as 13 buildings and one kiln.

Walking the Nagatani-en grounds

Mie Prefecture describes the Nagatani-en complex as a set of family living quarters and pottery workshops built between the Meiji and Taisho periods and kept much as they were. Read alongside the Agency for Cultural Affairs entries, the site falls into three parts.

The family residence

• The main house is a thatched dwelling facing south in the eastern part of the residential area, built in the Meiji period (1868 to 1912), with a building area of 185 square meters.
• The annex, a guest wing of 62 square meters, sits northwest of the main house on a connecting corridor that also leads on to the villa.
• The villa, at the far western edge of the grounds, began as retirement quarters in the Taisho period (1912 to 1926) and has a small Western-style room beside its entrance. It covers 119 square meters.
• The storehouse, behind the main house, once held the account books, and the rear storehouse stands against the west end of the annex. Both are two-story earthen-walled storehouses of the Meiji period.
• The gates and walls comprise the front gate before the main house, the west gate before the villa, a courtyard gate between them, and 106 meters of wall.

Exhibition rooms and workshops along the lane

• Exhibition Room 1 stands on the lane just east of the main house. First used as a miso store, it is now the largest gallery on the site.
• Exhibition Room 2 faces it from the south and is said to have been a stable. Exhibition Room 3, south again, was a rice store and is noticeably taller.
• Workshop 1 and Workshop 2 date from the Taisho period. Workshop 1 keeps part of the machinery that once drove the potters' wheels, and Workshop 2 is a large L-shaped shed.
• The hands-on workshop runs 25 meters along the east side of the lane and served as a firewood store for the kiln and a place to test glazes.

The Taishokan and the kiln on the hillside

• The Taishokan, a former office of the late Taisho period, sits high on a stone retaining wall at the western foot of the hill, with an arched canopy over its south door.
• The climbing kiln, a multi-chamber kiln of the late Edo period southeast of the Taishokan, runs 34 meters up the slope and rises 9.6 meters. The Agency's entry counts 15 firing chambers, while Nagatani-en calls it a 16-chamber kiln.

Because house, workshops, and kiln share one compound, Nagatani-en lets you see how a pottery family lived and worked in a single walk. Crossing from the thatched main house to the board-clad workshops and then climbing to the kiln, you can watch the finish and status of the buildings change with their purpose.

Visiting Nagatani-en

The Nagatani-en main shop and walking area are open from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. They close on Tuesdays (but open when a Tuesday is a national holiday) and over the New Year and Obon holidays. Walking the grounds costs nothing: you can browse the shops in the exhibition rooms, rest in the Taishokan, see the climbing kiln, and climb to a lookout over it. Hours and closing days were checked on the official Nagatani-en website on 5 October 2026 and may change.

The residential buildings (the main house, annex, villa, storehouse, and rear storehouse) are not normally open. A travel operator has advertised special tours that take small groups into the private house and garden.

Pottery classes led by working potters are held in the hands-on workshop. Groups need at least five people and must book by phone at least a week ahead (weekdays, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.). Painting starts at ¥2,750, and hand-building starts at ¥5,500 for 1 kilogram of clay. Every year from 2 to 4 May the grounds host the Kamadashi-ichi pottery fair.

By rail, take a taxi from Iga-Ueno Station on the JR Kansai Line, about 10 minutes, or from Uenoshi Station on the Iga Railway, about 20 minutes. By car, Nagatani-en is about 10 minutes from the Mibuno interchange on the Meihan National Highway, heading toward Ayama and Shigaraki, and has its own parking.