Tanaka Honke Museum Chunikai (Mezzanine House)

What the Tanaka Honke Museum Chunikai Is

The Tanaka Honke Museum Chunikai (Mezzanine House, 田中本家博物館中二階) is an early Meiji-period two-storey timber pavilion south of the Reception Hall on the Tanaka merchant estate in Suzaka City, Nagano Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 19 September 2003.

It runs north to south under a gabled roof of pantiles and covers 43 square metres. The Agency for Cultural Affairs records that it originally stood where the Reception Hall now stands; it was presumably moved to its present spot when the hall was built in 1895.

The ground floor has an earthen floor and the upper floor holds formal rooms, a split between working space below and a room with a view above.

Why the Chunikai Was Registered

The Tanaka Honke Museum Chunikai was registered as serving as a model of design. Upstairs are two eight-mat rooms with a Tokonoma alcove, and on both the east and west sides runs a veranda with a railing under a small eave.

The Agency praises its light, graceful form as an accent within the garden. With verandas on two sides, the building opens itself to the garden and also looks right when seen from the garden below.

What to Look For: The Railed Verandas

Watch the upper verandas. The slender railings and the thin line of the small eave above them make the whole building look lighter than it is.

An earth-floored ground level with formal rooms above belongs to the tradition of houses, not storehouses. The restrained lower walls and generous upper openings suggest that the pleasure of looking down on the garden came first.

The Reception Hall lies to the north and the Bathhouse to the east. Standing here, it is worth picturing the estate before 1895, when this small pavilion occupied the hall's site.

Visiting the Chunikai

The Tanaka Honke Museum Chunikai stands in the garden south of the Reception Hall, so its exterior can be seen from the paths on opening days. Step back from the east or west side to see the railed verandas running along both flanks.

Whether the upstairs rooms are open varies with the season; ask at reception. Directions and admission are on the Tanaka Honke Museum page.