Yachiyo Tsurukame Building

The Crane and Tortoise Rooms

The Yachiyo Tsurukame Building (八千代鶴亀棟) is a single-storey wing of reception rooms of the early Taisho period (1912 to 1918) in Tonomachi, Matsusaka City, Mie Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on August 1, 2016 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Agency records a single-storey timber building with a tile roof and a building area of 66 square metres, moved in the early Showa period (1926 to 1945); registration number 24-0234.

The Crane Room and the Tortoise Room

The Yachiyo Tsurukame Building is a single-storey timber wing to the south of the entrance front (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Its two rooms, the 10-tatami Crane Room (tsuru) and the 8-tatami Tortoise Room (kame), lie end to end on a north-south line, with verandas along the east and west sides.

According to the official Yachiyo website, the two rooms of the Yachiyo Tsurukame Building open into each other through sliding fusuma doors to make 18 tatami, with decorated openwork transoms above, and are normally used as a dining room.

Why It Was Registered

The Agency for Cultural Affairs believes the Yachiyo Tsurukame Building survives from the days when the site was the Ozu family house, and notes that its fittings are more old-fashioned than those of the entrance building and the other wings.

The Agency also sees in it a trace of how the samurai quarters of the Matsusaka castle town turned into a quiet residential district in the modern era, and registered it as a model of design. The Yachiyo Tsurukame Building was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2016.

What to Look For

In the Yachiyo Tsurukame Building, compare the fittings with those of the guest rooms in the entrance building; the Agency describes the Tsurukame work as the more old-fashioned of the two.

Standing at the line between the Crane Room and the Tortoise Room lets you see the openwork transom from both sides. The verandas on the east and west follow the simple plan of two rooms set end to end.

Visiting

The Yachiyo Tsurukame Building is a reception room of a working kappo ryokan, so the interior is seen as a guest with a meal booking (official Yachiyo website), and the website asks diners who want a particular room to arrange it in advance. No official notice of tours for sightseers or of a photography policy was found. Directions and booking conditions are on the Yachiyo page.