Fujioka Family Residence Main House

A Postwar Townhouse on the Old Yagyu Road

The Fujioka Family Residence Main House (藤岡家住宅主屋, Fujioka-ke Jūtaku Omoya) is a townhouse (Machiya) built around 1948 in Takabatakecho, Nara City, Nara Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 17 August 2020. It stands on the north side of the old Yagyu Kaido road in the eastern part of Naramachi, Nara’s historic merchant quarter, and was renovated in 2016.

The plot is the classic long, narrow strip, and the house sits a little back from the road, facing south. It is a single-storey timber building with a gabled roof (kirizuma) in pantiles (sangawara), with a building area of 70 square metres. The walls are left in a middle coat of earthen plaster, with vertical boarding along the base, and a projecting lattice window is set in the centre of the front.

Inside, an earth-floored passage (Toriniwa) runs from front to back along the east side, and three rooms line up in a single row on the west. The innermost room, the okunoma, has a formal alcove (Tokonoma). A through-passage with one row of three rooms is a layout found across the townhouses of Naramachi.

One House in the Old Capital’s Streetscape

The Fujioka Family Residence Main House in Takabatakecho was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs counts it among the townhouses that make up the scenery of the old capital, and Nara City notes that it keeps the look of a traditional townhouse and helps form the historic streetscape of the old road.

It went up in the years just after the war, far later than the Edo-period townhouses of Naramachi. Registration generally applies to structures at least 50 years old. What earned this one its place is not age so much as continuity: it was built after the war in the same townhouse form, and it still stands as part of the view along the old road.

The Yagyu Kaido is an old route running east from Nara to the village of Yagyu. Takabatakecho lies where the road leaves Naramachi, and older houses still line it. With its lattice facing the road, the Fujioka house keeps that line of frontages unbroken.

Reading the Front

From the road, the projecting lattice in the centre of the front catches the eye first. Such lattices define the face of a townhouse, letting those inside watch the street while screening them from passers-by.

The walls are not finished in white lime plaster but left in the earthen middle coat, with boards along the base. Earth and timber give the modest single-storey front a quiet character, and the slight setback from the road leaves a small margin of space before the house that is part of its expression.

Visiting

The Fujioka Family Residence Main House in Takabatakecho is a private home, and the interior is not open. Viewing is limited to the exterior from the road. Please do not enter the property, linger at length or photograph through windows.

Takabatakecho lies southeast of Kintetsu Nara Station, about 1.4 km in a straight line, or a little over 20 minutes on foot. The surrounding lanes are narrow and there is no visitor parking.