Fujimoto Family Residence Main House

The Fujimoto Family Residence Main House

The Fujimoto Family Residence Main House (藤本家住宅主屋, Fujimoto-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a late Edo-period farmhouse in Fujiidera City, Osaka Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on October 18, 2006. It sits a little west of the centre of the family plot, its ridge running east to west and its front door facing north.

The house measures 8 by 4 Ken bays and covers 193 square metres under a gabled (Kirizuma-zukuri) roof of interlocking pantiles (Sangawara-buki). On paper it is single-storey, but the Agency for Cultural Affairs describes a low attic floor of the kind called Tsushi-nikai, and a small smoke vent rises near the eastern end of the ridge. The registration also covers a lavatory and a stretch of wall.

Inside, the eastern part is an earth-floored work area (Doma) and the western part is raised living space laid out as four rooms, with an eight-mat reception room (Zashiki) in the northwest corner. Osaka Bunkazai Navi adds that the earthen floor runs straight through to the back garden, and that the raised floor was originally a five-room variant of the standard four-room plan.

Why the Main House Was Registered

The Fujimoto Family Residence Main House was listed for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency's notes point to the west wall, which meets the street directly and anchors the old approach to Fujiidera temple (葛井寺). That street runs due south from the temple's Great South Gate, and the house shows it a long side wall rather than its front.

The Agency dates the house to the late Edo period. Osaka Bunkazai Navi reads the structure and detailing as evidence that the core existed by then and was enlarged several times during the Meiji period.

The sources do not quite agree on size: the Agency gives a depth of 4 bays, while Osaka Bunkazai Navi gives 6. The figures here follow the Agency's database.

What to Look For

Start with the roof. The little raised vent near the east end of the ridge sits right above the earthen floor, where the cooking stoves were, so a detail you can spot from outside tells you how the interior is divided.

The entrance faces north, away from the street. Osaka Bunkazai Navi describes passing through the front gate to find a bamboo-fenced garden on the right and the north-facing entrance beyond. The plain west wall you see from the lane wraps the eight-mat reception room on the other side.

A later lavatory is attached to the western end of the north side, and the front gate stands between it and the tool storehouse. The clothing storehouse continues the same wall line to the south, and the north rice storehouse abuts the house on the east. Gates and storehouses lined up on the house's own wall line are what give the Fujimoto Family Residence Main House its long, unbroken street front.

Visiting the Fujimoto Family Residence Main House

The Fujimoto Family Residence Main House is a private home and its interior is not open to visitors, including the earthen floor, the reception rooms and the garden inside the gate.

The west wall can be seen from the lane. Because the smoke vent sits toward the eastern end, it tends to disappear behind the roof slope if you stand close; step back along the street to catch it. Keep photography to the exterior from the public road and do not look in through the gate. Directions to the estate are on the Fujimoto Family Residence page.