Northern Culture Museum Great Hall

A Single-Storey Hall for Guests

The Northern Culture Museum Great Hall (北方文化博物館大広間, Ōhiroma) in Somi, Konan Ward, Niigata City, is a single-storey timber reception building of 1889, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 28 April 2000.

The Northern Culture Museum Great Hall runs parallel to the main house on its south side, across a courtyard, and is joined to it by a covered passage. It covers 287 square metres under a large hip-and-gable roof (Irimoya-zukuri), with an entrance porch crowned by a cusped karahafu gable on the east.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs records a 32-mat main room followed by a middle room and an upper room of 15 mats each, and a long earth-floored veranda along the garden side to the south.

Grand Rooms for Grand Occasions

The Northern Culture Museum Great Hall was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape; the agency calls it a reception building of majestic composition.

The museum describes the Northern Culture Museum Great Hall as a Shoin-zukuri building of about 100 tatami mats. Though linked to the main house, it stands apart, with its own formal entrance built entirely of zelkova, and it was the most formal space in the house, used only a few times a year.

Few posts interrupt the rooms, which binds them to the garden. With the sliding doors in place, the space divides into an upper room, a middle room, two side rooms and the high-ceilinged main hall. Materials were matched to their place: cherry for the sills, straight-grained cedar for the posts, zelkova for the corridors.

Carved Transoms and the Garden

The Ranma transoms of the Northern Culture Museum Great Hall are carved with scenes from Chinese tales, and calligraphy and paintings connected with the family hang where they always have. Seasonal pieces such as Kyoho-era hina dolls are also shown.

To the south lies the pond garden built by Tanaka Taiami. The museum points out that the maples of the main garden lean their branches toward the hall, and it gives mid to late November as the usual peak for autumn colour. From the hall, the Sekisuian tea room can be seen to the southeast.

Stand on the veranda and you see how the nearly post-free rooms frame the garden.

Visiting the Great Hall

The rooms of the Northern Culture Museum Great Hall are on the visitor route; shoes come off inside. The formal zelkova entrance is opened only on special occasions such as New Year, weddings, funerals and imperial visits.

In the autumn colour season the museum sometimes illuminates the garden seen from the hall. Check the museum's notices for the year's dates, and keep photos and posts to personal use.