Morohashi Family Residence Main House

About the Morohashi Family Residence Main House

The Morohashi Family Residence Main House (諸橋家住宅主屋, Morohashi-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a single-story timber farmhouse in Myogadani, Konan Ward, Niigata City, built around 1921 and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on November 20, 2001. The Agency for Cultural Affairs introduces it as the home of one of the leading large farming families of the district.

The house covers 277 square meters under a tiled roof of gently pitched Sangawara-buki. On the same plot, just to the south, stands the Morohashi Family Residence Storehouse of 1905, facing north toward it.

A Chumon-zukuri Plan with the Niwa Thrust Forward

The Morohashi main house follows the chumon-zukuri (中門造) plan. In this layout, part of the front of the farmhouse is pushed forward as a wing that holds an entrance and working space, a form often associated with farmhouses in Japan's snow country. Here the projecting part is the niwa, the earth-floored work area of the house.

Because of that wing, the front of the house does not read as one flat wall. Seen from the approach, it steps back in two stages: the projecting block in front and the main body of the house behind it.

The roof pitch is worth noticing too. The Agency's description says the low, gently sloped tiled roof gives the exterior a modest, even plain look. This was the house of a very large farming household, yet from outside it makes little show of that.

Why It Was Registered: Fine Timber and Reused Beams

The Morohashi Family Residence Main House was registered under the criterion of serving as a model of design. What earned that recognition is the interior, which is far more refined than the exterior suggests.

A single row of zashiki reception rooms runs along the front of the house. According to the Agency, the posts, the Nageshi tie beams and the Sashigamoi in those rooms are all of high-quality timber. A sashigamoi is a deep lintel spanning between posts that carries the sliding doors and also braces the frame, so choosing good wood for it shows how much care went into the rooms where guests were received.

The other feature is the roof frame. The house reuses old beams and leaves them exposed rather than hiding them above a ceiling. In other words, a new main house of the Taisho era was built around timbers that had already served elsewhere. Where they came from is not recorded in the Agency's description.

The Agency sums up the result as elaborately designed. Plain outside, carefully worked inside: that contrast is what sets this main house apart.

Visiting the Morohashi Main House

The Morohashi Family Residence Main House is a private home still lived in by the Morohashi family. The interior is not open, so the reception rooms and beams cannot be seen. Please do not enter the grounds; view the exterior only from the public road.

The sources consulted do not say how much of the main house is visible from the road. If you take photographs, remember that this is a family home and avoid capturing the residents or the inside of the property.