Main House of Sasaki Nobutsuna's Birthplace

The House Where Sasaki Nobutsuna Was Born

The Main House of Sasaki Nobutsuna's Birthplace (佐佐木信綱生家主屋) is a timber townhouse of 1868 beside the old Tokaido road at Ishiyakushi-cho, Suzuka City, Mie Prefecture, the birthplace of the poet and scholar Sasaki Nobutsuna, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on October 28, 2011 (Agency for Cultural Affairs, Suzuka City).

The Agency for Cultural Affairs records it as single-storey timber with a tiled roof and a building area of 121 square metres, altered in the mid-Meiji era, moved in 1970 and renovated in 2008; registration number 24-0109, owned by Suzuka City.

Sasaki Nobutsuna and His Birthplace

According to Suzuka City, Sasaki Nobutsuna was born here on June 3, 1872, the eldest son of the National Learning scholar Sasaki Hirotsuna, and lived in Ishiyakushi until about the age of five. From early childhood his father taught him to recite poems from the Man'yoshu and Saigyo's Sankashu, and he composed his first tanka at six by the traditional count.

Nobutsuna wrote more than 10,000 poems, led the Chikuhakukai poetry society and founded its journal Kokoro no Hana. His critical edition of the Man'yoshu (1924 to 1925) was a landmark of scholarship, and in 1937 he received the first Order of Culture. He also wrote the words of the song "Natsu wa Kinu" (Summer Has Come) (Suzuka City).

Value as a Registered Cultural Property

The Main House of Sasaki Nobutsuna's Birthplace was registered as a building that has become a model of design. The Agency for Cultural Affairs calls it one of the few townhouses left in the former Ishiyakushi post town. Suzuka City notes that on February 1, 2011, it became the city's first designated Important Landscape Building.

What to Look For

The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that it faces east onto the old Tokaido, with a gabled tiled roof and tiled pent roofs front and back. 12 metres wide and 10 metres deep, it has a low attic storey, a through earthen passage on the south side and two rows of three raised rooms; the innermost room of the north row is the main reception room with a tokonoma alcove and side shelves.

Suzuka City records that the Sasaki Nobutsuna Memorial Museum opened in the Main House of Sasaki Nobutsuna's Birthplace on December 12, 1970. Visitors can look into the interior from the garden.

Visiting

According to Suzuka City, admission to the Sasaki Nobutsuna Memorial Museum is free, with viewing from 10:00 to 16:00. It is closed on Mondays, Tuesdays and the third Wednesday (open when only the Monday is a holiday) and over the New Year. Take the C-Bus from Kintetsu Suzukashi Station or JR Kawano Station to the Sasaki Kinenkan stop, about a 2-minute walk (Suzuka City).

The Main House of Sasaki Nobutsuna's Birthplace forms the Sasaki Nobutsuna Memorial Museum with the storehouse and the Ishiyakushi Bunko Reading Room. See the group page Sasaki Nobutsuna Memorial Museum for all three buildings.