A Restaurant Built for Nine-Ken Cedar
The Taketa City Community Hall Taketa Branch (竹田市公民館竹田分館, formerly the Ichimirō / 旧一味楼, also written Ichimiro), a wooden two-story building raised around 1913 on the west bank of the Inaba River in Taketa City, Oita Prefecture, was entered on the national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 28 October 2011.
It was built as a ryōtei, a high-end restaurant where guests ate in private tatami rooms and were entertained by professional performers. The ridge runs north to south under an irimoya hipped-and-gabled roof laid with sangawara pantiles, the interlocking clay tiles that became standard on Japanese townhouses in the Edo period. The entrance sits on the west face toward the southern end, and a storehouse is attached on the east. The building covers 233 square metres.
Inside, the ground floor is given over to zashiki guest rooms lined up along the north-south axis. The upper floor abandons that division for a single large hall with a stage at one end, an arrangement that tells you what kind of evenings the place was designed to host.
The timber is the point. Polished cedar logs run some nine ken in length, roughly sixteen metres, and paulownia appears alongside them. Merchants commissioning a restaurant in the 1910s were competing on materials, and the Ichimirō was built to win that competition.
Registered, Not Designated
Japan keeps two parallel systems for architectural heritage. Designation (shitei) picks out a small number of buildings and protects them with permits and state funding; National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties sit here. Registration (tōroku), introduced in 1996, casts a much wider net over buildings from the Meiji period onward, asking owners only to notify the government before major alterations. The Ichimirō belongs to the second, lighter category.
Its registration criterion was contribution to the historic landscape of the country. Registration number 44-0198, granted in the seventy-first round of listings, covers one structure. The same round of October 2011 brought in several other buildings around the Taketa castle town, among them the Shioya former great storehouse and the old Takeya Bookshop, so the Ichimirō was recognised as part of a streetscape rather than in isolation.
The city carried out repairs in 2011, the same year as the listing. That combination of dates is common with registered properties in municipal hands: a building earns its listing at the moment a local government commits to keeping it standing.
Visiting the Taketa Castle Town
The building is a working community hall, not a museum. Residents book its rooms for meetings, classes and rehearsals, which means the interior is not on a tourist schedule. Anyone hoping to see the upstairs hall and its stage should contact the Taketa City Board of Education well ahead of a visit; turning up unannounced will usually get you no further than the entrance. The exterior can be looked at freely from the public road, and photographing it from there raises no issue.
Taketa is reached by JR Bungo-Taketa Station on the Hōhi Line, and the old castle town sits in a bowl ringed by cliffs that you enter through road tunnels. Most of what a visitor wants is within walking distance of the station. Oka Castle ruins, the National Historic Site whose mossed stone walls inspired the song Kōjō no Tsuki, are the usual first stop. Closer to the centre stand the Taki Rentarō Memorial Hall, the Important Cultural Property main hall of Ganjōin, and the Taketa Museum of History and Culture Yūgakukan, which sells a combined pass covering several sites.
Seeing the Ichimirō in that company is what makes it legible. The castle town holds a run of registered buildings, and this one marks the point where the merchant quarter's money went into entertainment rather than storage or retail.
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- Find tours, activities & transport passes near Taketa Branch of the Taketa City Community Hall (former Ichimiro)
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Q&A
- Can visitors go inside the Taketa City Community Hall Taketa Branch (former Ichimirō)?
- The building operates as a public community facility rather than a visitor attraction, and its rooms are in regular civic use. Interior access is not guaranteed and should be arranged in advance through the Taketa City Board of Education. The exterior is visible from the street at any hour.
- What was the Taketa City Community Hall Taketa Branch before it became a public building?
- It was the Ichimirō, a ryōtei restaurant built around 1913 in the Taisho period. The layout still reflects that use: private tatami rooms on the ground floor and a large hall with a stage above.
- When was the Taketa City Community Hall Taketa Branch registered, and under which category?
- It was registered on 28 October 2011 as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure), registration number 44-0198, on the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the country. This is registration, a lighter form of protection than designation as an Important Cultural Property.
- What is distinctive about the timber used in the Taketa City Community Hall Taketa Branch?
- Polished cedar logs about nine ken long, near sixteen metres, run through the building, and paulownia is used alongside them. The Agency for Cultural Affairs description singles out this lavish choice of material as characteristic of the restaurant architecture of the period.
- How do you reach the Taketa City Community Hall Taketa Branch?
- Take the JR Hōhi Line to Bungo-Taketa Station. The building stands in the old castle town on the west bank of the Inaba River, within walking distance of the station along with Oka Castle ruins and the Taki Rentarō Memorial Hall.
Basic Information
| Name | Taketa City Community Hall Taketa Branch (former Ichimirō) / 竹田市公民館竹田分館（旧一味楼） |
|---|---|
| Location | 1918-1 and adjacent, Ōaza Taketa, Taketa City, Oita Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure), registration number 44-0198 |
| Year Designated | Registered 28 October 2011 (announced the same day); seventy-first round of registration |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Wooden, two stories, tiled roof; building area 233 m² |
| Owner | Taketa City |
| Public Access | In use as a community hall; interior viewing by prior arrangement with the city. Exterior visible from the public road. |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs — Taketa City Community Hall Taketa Branch (former Ichimirō)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00009099
- Cultural Heritage Online, Agency for Cultural Affairs — entry for the same building
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/252469
- Taketa City — Historic Scenic Improvement Plan, chapter on the city's cultural properties (PDF)
- https://www.city.taketa.oita.jp/material/files/group/23/2syo6syo.pdf
- Oita Prefecture — list of nationally designated, selected and registered cultural properties (PDF)
- https://www.pref.oita.jp/kyoiku/tmp/bunka/post-101/1.pdf
- Taketa City Tourism Association — castle town access and sightseeing information
- https://taketa.guide/
Last verified: 2026.08.20