Hara Family Residence Buddhist Altar Room Wing

A Wing Built Around the Family Altar

Hara Family Residence Buddhist Altar Room Wing (原家住宅仏間棟, Hara-ke Jūtaku Butsuma-tō) is a single-storey timber wing built in 1902 in Nihongi, Konan Ward, Niigata City, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 1 August 2016. It projects from the north-west corner of the main house under its own tiled hipped roof and has a building area of 65 square metres.

At its core is the butsuma, the room that holds a household's Buddhist altar. In a Japanese home this is where ancestors are honoured and memorial services are held. Here the room is six tatami mats in size.

A small gabled toilet and what was once the bathhouse are attached on the east side. The tea room originally adjoined the wing to the north; it has since been moved to another spot in the grounds.

A Temple Front Inside a House

The Agency for Cultural Affairs reserves its detail for the altar setting. On the west side of the room the floor is raised to form a recess two ken wide and four shaku two sun deep, measured in the old Japanese units, and the altar sits within it.

Across the front runs a Kōryō, a gently arched tie beam. Above it sit bracket sets of the demegumi type, which step out once from the wall plane, and overhead is a coffered Gō-tenjō ceiling. All three belong to temple architecture, and the Agency describes the result as a solemn, dignified setting.

The same family kept its reception rooms plain. In front of the altar it spent freely on craft and material, and that choice is the reason the Hara Family Residence Buddhist Altar Room Wing repays attention.

What to Look For

The key view is the altar front, where tie beam, brackets and coffered ceiling stack up. It reads like the front of a temple sanctuary compressed to fit under a domestic ceiling.

Outside, the giveaway is the roof. The wing carries its own hipped roof, separate from the main house, with the little gables of the toilet and former bathhouse tucked against its east side. The change in roof shape shows where the Hara Family Residence Buddhist Altar Room Wing begins.

Viewing the Altar Room Wing

This is a family place of worship, and the interior is closed. Because the altar setting is indoors, there is no way to see it from outside.

The wing sits on the north-west side of the main house, toward the back of the grounds. We have not been able to confirm how much of it is visible from the public road, and the grounds cannot be entered.