Tanaka Family Residence Front Barn

The Barn Facing the Main House

The Tanaka Family Residence Front Barn (田中家住宅表納屋, Tanaka-ke Jūtaku Omote-naya) is a barn built in 1900 directly across the old Wakayama Kaidō highway from the Tanaka main house in Iitakacho Hase, Matsusaka City, Mie Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on November 2, 2018.

It is a 2-storey timber building under a gabled, pantiled roof with a building area of 63 square metres. Its front faces north onto the road, with doorways at the east and west ends of that side and a lean-to roof along the north and west.

Half of the Streetscape

The Agency for Cultural Affairs names the Tanaka Family Residence Front Barn, like the main house, as the core of the historic roadside scene, and it was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. With the main house on the north side of the road and the barn on the south, the two buildings face each other and frame the highway between them.

Behind the barn, touching it, stands the front zashiki known as Senjitei, and the stone retaining wall above the Kushida River begins at the barn's east end. It is the only building on the southern half of the property that stands right on the road.

Earth Floors at Both Ends

Inside, the Tanaka Front Barn has an earth-floored work area at each end and a raised boarded floor in the middle. The western earth floor rises through a double-height void that holds the way up to the upper floor, so you can climb straight from the earth floor to the storey above.

From the street, look at the two doorways at either end of the north front. They sit exactly where the earth floors are inside, so the plan of the barn can be read from its face.

Seeing the Front Barn

The Tanaka Family Residence Front Barn stands on the road, and its north side can be seen from the street. The Tanaka Family Museum's official information does not say whether the earth floors and the void inside are shown to visitors.