Former Yamada Family Residence Shinzashiki (New Reception Room)

What the Former Yamada Family Residence Shinzashiki is

The Former Yamada Family Residence Shinzashiki (旧山田家住宅新座敷, Kyū-Yamada-ke Jūtaku Shinzashiki) is a guest wing built in 1953 in Ebe, Nakano City, Nagano Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on November 29, 2016. It is the newest of the seven registered buildings on the estate.

The name means "new reception room". It joins the older Okuzashiki at a right angle in the middle of the estate and connects to the entrance on its north side. The building is single-storey timber with a hip-and-gable roof (Irimoya-zukuri) of pantiles (Sangawara-buki), given a gentle upward swell, and walls with exposed posts (Shinkabe). It covers 30 m².

Why the Shinzashiki was registered

The Former Yamada Family Residence Shinzashiki was registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes the sequence of a 4-mat anteroom leading into an 8-mat guest room, and the sukiya touches, the relaxed, tea-influenced style, worked into the guest room.

According to Nakano City, the room is built from choice timbers the owner spent 10 years collecting and appears to have supplied to the master carpenter himself. The materials, more than the plan, carry the owner's intentions for the room where guests were received.

Buildings generally become eligible for registration once they are 50 years old. The Shinzashiki was registered 63 years after it went up, the only postwar building among the seven.

What to look for in the Shinzashiki

From anteroom to guest room

Enter from the north and you pass first through the 4-mat anteroom before reaching the 8-mat guest room. Receiving a visitor in a small room before showing them into the main one is a formal habit, and here it is built into a very compact wing.

A crooked lintel and a cusped window

The lintel across the top of the alcove is a piece of unusual, characterful wood rather than a straight beam. In the plaster band above, a window takes the cusped outline known as kōzama, familiar from the bases of Buddhist altars. Compared with the straight-grained restraint of the Okuzashiki, the Shinzashiki is noticeably more playful.

A side gate with no bolt

Probably because it was planned for receiving callers, the Shinzashiki is screened from the main garden by a board fence and side gate. Yet the gate has no bolt on the garden side, so a guest stepping off the veranda could walk straight into the garden. It divides the space without shutting anyone out.

Visiting the Shinzashiki

Nakano City lists the Former Yamada Family Residence Shinzashiki among the buildings open to visitors, so the interior can be seen with a regular admission ticket on opening days. Visits are by advance booking.

Like the Okuzashiki, it is also hired out, so check bookings for your day when you reserve. The lintel and window reward a close look; ask at reception whether indoor photography is allowed. Opening hours, admission and directions are on the Former Yamada Family Residence page.