Ryokan Memorial Hall

The Ryokan Memorial Hall

The Ryokan Memorial Hall (良寛記念館, Ryōkan Kinenkan; it calls itself the Ryokan Memorial Museum) in Yoneda, Izumozaki Town, Niigata Prefecture, opened in 1965, and its three buildings by the architect Yoshiro Taniguchi, the exhibition building, the administration building and the corridor, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (structures) on August 1, 2016 (Agency for Cultural Affairs; Niigata Prefecture). All three belong to Izumozaki Town.

Ryōkan, a Zen monk of the late Edo period remembered for his poetry and calligraphy, was born in Izumozaki in 1758, the eldest son of the Yamamoto family, village headmen whose house was called Tachibanaya (Izumozaki Town). The memorial was raised with public donations to mark the bicentenary of his birth. The town gives 1965 as the year it was completed; Niigata Prefecture dates the opening to May of that year.

According to the prefecture, the hall grew out of a gift: Sato Kichitaro, known by his pen name Taisetsu, who had worked to build the Ryokan-do memorial hall in Izumozaki, gave his collection of Ryōkan's calligraphy and related papers to the town, and a foundation was set up to look after it. The museum stands on Toragishigaoka, a hill tied to the Tachibanaya family, and the town has run it directly since 2013.

Three Registered Buildings

The Ryokan Memorial Hall consists of three reinforced-concrete structures: an administration building with the reception desk, an exhibition building for Ryōkan's calligraphy and other works, and a corridor joining the two (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

• Exhibition building (registration number 15-0452): a single-storey hall with a gabled roof, entered at the gable end (Tsumairi), with an open veranda on the east, west and north sides; building area 135 square metres
• Administration building (15-0453): a single-storey block on the front of the site, ridge running north to south, entered on the long side (Hirairi); external steps at the north end form the entrance, with the reception and office to the south; building area 80 square metres
• Corridor (15-0454): a 23-metre covered walkway between the two, with a wall along its south side and its floor and roof cantilevered out

The Agency registered all three as models of design. Together the buildings frame the garden, and the corridor is said to have been meant as a threshold leading into the exhibition building, imagined as a sacred space; the Agency sees it as the piece that holds the whole composition together.

The dates need a note. The Agency records the exhibition building as built in 1961 and the administration building and corridor in 1964, while the prefecture and the town give 1965 for the completion and opening. This site shows both. Each building has its own page with the details of its design.

Walking the Grounds

The grounds of the Ryokan Memorial Hall hold a memorial stone to Sato Taisetsu, the stone of the Edo-period literati painter Kushiro Unsen with an inscription by Kameda Bosai, and a small hermitage named Taisetsu-an; a stone carved with one of Ryōkan's poems stands behind the museum (Niigata Prefecture). South of the building is the graveyard of the Tachibanaya family, Ryōkan's own (Izumozaki Town).

On the hill to the north, another poem stone marks a viewpoint voted first among the Hundred Scenic Views of Niigata (Izumozaki Town). Sado Island lies straight ahead across the sea, Mount Yahiko to the right, and below are the Ryokan-do memorial, the fishing port and the long row of gable-fronted houses along the shore.

Visiting the Ryokan Memorial Hall

The museum is open to visitors for an admission fee, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. It opens every day from April to October; from November to March it closes on Wednesdays (or the following day when Wednesday is a public holiday), and it is closed over the New Year from December 29 to January 3 (Niigata Prefecture; Niigata Tourism Navi).

Admission is 400 yen for adults, 200 yen for high school students and 100 yen for elementary and junior high school students; groups of 20 or more pay 300, 150 and 70 yen (Niigata Tourism Navi). Fees and closing days can change, so check with the museum (tel. 0258-78-2370) before you go. No official information on photography inside was found.

By public transport, take the bus bound for Izumozaki Shako from Izumozaki Station on the JR Echigo Line, about 7 minutes, get off at Ryokan Kinenkan-mae and walk about 5 minutes (Niigata Tourism Navi). By car it is about 15 minutes from the Nishiyama interchange on the Hokuriku Expressway, with parking for 10 cars and 2 coaches.