Kikusuiro Main Building

A 3-Story Wooden Front on Sanjo-dori, Built in 1901

The Kikusuiro Main Building (菊水楼本館, Kikusuirō Honkan) is a 3-story wooden building of 1901 at the Kikusuiro ryotei in Takabatake-cho, Nara City, Nara Prefecture, and it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on December 4, 2000. It was added to the 1891 Former Main Building and joined to it, and it has a building area of 293 square meters.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the Kikusuiro Main Building as purely Japanese in style, with a hip-and-gable Irimoya-zukuri roof covered in interlocking pan tiles (Sangawara-buki). An entrance porch, also hip-and-gabled, projects from the front. The result is a 3-story timber building on the south side of Sanjo-dori, just short of the first torii gate of Kasuga Taisha.

Why the Main Building Was Registered

The Kikusuiro Main Building carries registration number 29-0031 and was listed under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the country. In the agency's words, its view from Sanjo-dori, together with the Front Gate, has become indispensable to the scene in front of the great torii. That torii is the first gate of Kasuga Taisha, where Sanjo-dori comes to an end.

The agency also singles out two details. The ceiling of the projecting entrance carries a carving of kikusui, and the ground-floor walls have round windows in the shape of chrysanthemum flowers. Kikusui, chrysanthemum and flowing water, is a classic Japanese motif, and the house name begins with the same word, so the name of the business is carved into the ceiling of its own entrance.

What to Look For in the Main Building

Looking at the Kikusuiro Main Building from the Sanjo-dori side, pick out the hip-and-gable entrance porch thrust forward and the 3 stories of the main body rising behind it. The chrysanthemum windows are set in the ground-floor walls, while the kikusui carving is on the porch ceiling, where you have to step under the porch and look up to see it.

Inside, the company that runs Kikusuiro highlights two rooms. The Shitahiroma, or lower hall, on the ground floor has an oriage Gō-tenjō, a coffered ceiling whose center is raised on a curved cove; it covers 100 square meters with a ceiling height of 3.5 meters. On the 3rd floor, The Yamato, a hall of 144 square meters, keeps carved Ranma transoms and mother-of-pearl Raden inlay, and the company says it commands views of Mount Wakakusa, the first torii of Kasuga Taisha and the Yamato plain.

The company describes this 3-story building as dating from the opening in 1891. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database and Nara City's plan both record the Kikusuiro Main Building as an addition of 1901, and this article follows the agency's record.

Visiting the Kikusuiro Main Building

The exterior of the Kikusuiro Main Building can be seen from Sanjo-dori at any time. Before passing through the first torii toward Kasuga Taisha, stop on the south side of the street to see the Front Gate and the Main Building together.

The interior of the Kikusuiro Main Building is open only to restaurant guests and to people attending banquets or weddings. The lower hall seats up to 30 and The Yamato up to 90, and both are used for functions, so if you want to see them, ask when you book a meal or event. Ask about photography at the same time. Directions and restaurant hours are on the Kikusuiro page.