Former Yamada Family Residence Okuzashiki (Inner Reception Rooms)

What the Former Yamada Family Residence Okuzashiki is

The Former Yamada Family Residence Okuzashiki (旧山田家住宅奥座敷, Kyū-Yamada-ke Jūtaku Okuzashiki) is a pair of mid-Meiji reception rooms built between 1883 and 1897 in Ebe, Nakano City, Nagano Prefecture, moved to their present spot around 1951 and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on November 29, 2016.

An okuzashiki is the inner reception room of a large house, kept for guests rather than daily life. This one stands near the middle of the estate, facing the garden. It is a single-storey timber building with a hipped roof (Yosemune-zukuri) of pantiles (Sangawara-buki) and walls that leave the posts exposed (Shinkabe). It covers 47 m², and its two tatami rooms open into each other through sliding doors.

Why the Okuzashiki was registered

The Former Yamada Family Residence Okuzashiki was registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs points to its alcove decoration, made of fine timber but kept deliberately plain, and to the verandas on both the north and south sides that make the rooms bright and open.

Nakano City describes the interior as sukiya in spirit, the lighter, tea-influenced taste in Japanese domestic building, and says it reflects the ideas of an owner who practised the tea ceremony. There is little applied ornament. The quality of the wood carries the room.

When the building was moved, it was turned 90 degrees from its original orientation. As it stands now, the north side looks onto trees and the south side onto a pond and stone arrangement.

What to look for in the Okuzashiki

The alcove wall

The east wall holds the Tokonoma and display shelves; the west wall has a storage closet. The alcove post is a Japanese cedar log with shibori texture, fine vertical ridges running up the trunk. Beside it is a flat shoin, a paper-screened window set flush into the wall instead of projecting as a desk alcove. Stand square to the alcove and notice how few pieces of wood make up the whole composition.

Verandas on two sides

With the screens slid back on both sides, the rooms frame the garden to the north and south at once. The pond and stones to the south are best seen the way guests saw them, seated on the tatami.

Next door, joined at a right angle, is the Shinzashiki of 1953. Walking from one to the other shows how the same family's idea of a guest room changed over more than half a century.

Visiting the Okuzashiki

Nakano City lists the Former Yamada Family Residence Okuzashiki among the buildings open to visitors, so on opening days you can see the rooms with a regular admission ticket. Visits are by advance booking.

The rooms are also hired out, for tea gatherings among other things, so ask about bookings for your day when you reserve. Check at reception whether indoor photography is allowed. Opening hours, admission and directions are on the Former Yamada Family Residence page.