Fujino Family Residence Birdhouse

About the Fujino Family Residence Birdhouse

The Fujino Family Residence Birdhouse (藤野家住宅鳥小屋, Fujino-ke Jūtaku Torigoya) is a 1-story wooden aviary built in the mid-Meiji period (1883 to 1897) in Fujiidera 2-chome, Fujiidera City, Osaka Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2012.

The Fujino Family Residence Birdhouse stands on the southern edge of the plot, west of the storage shed, with its ridge running east to west. It is 11.6 m long but only 1.8 m deep, with a building area of 21 square meters. The Sangawara-buki pantiled roof is a single-pitch shed roof with a maneki-yane added, a roof in which one slope is long and the other, on the far side of the ridge, is short.

The middle of the building is the aviary, and each end is a small storeroom. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the family kept Java sparrows and other small birds here.

Why the Fujino Family Residence Birdhouse was registered

The Fujino Family Residence Birdhouse was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape of the country. The agency values it as a birdhouse that shows how an old established family lived.

Most of the nine registered Fujino structures are the kind any substantial household would have: a main house, gates and walls, a barn, storehouses, a shed. The birdhouse alone was built for pleasure rather than need. Java sparrows have been kept as cage birds in Japan since the Edo period, and a headman's family putting up a building just for its birds says something about the ease of daily life in Meiji times.

A birdhouse is usually a simple structure, the kind that gets rebuilt when it wears out and pulled down when it is no longer used. The Fujino Family Residence Birdhouse still holds its corner of the southern edge beside the storage shed, within an estate laid out in the mid-Meiji period.

What to look for at the Fujino Birdhouse

The first thing about the shape of the Fujino Family Residence Birdhouse is how thin it is. It runs 11.6 m long against a depth of just 1.8 m, a ratio of more than six to one. Birds need little depth, and a long sunny face would have suited them better.

The agency describes lattice set across the aviary in the middle of the south face, while the storerooms at the east and west ends are closed in Ōkabe walls with the posts plastered over. The lattice opens to the sunny south and the ends are shut, so the one building has an open center and closed ends.

The roof follows suit. It slopes mostly one way as a shed roof, with the short maneki-yane slope turning back at the ridge. On a shed only 1.8 m deep, that seems a neat way to throw rain to one side and still finish the ridge properly.

Visiting the Fujino Family Residence Birdhouse

The Fujino Family Residence is a private home and the grounds are not open. The Fujino Family Residence Birdhouse is on the southern edge of the estate, and we have not confirmed how much of the latticed south face can be seen from outside. Public sources also do not say if birds are still kept here today.

Please take care not to step onto neighboring properties. Directions to the estate are on the Fujino Family Residence (Fujiidera) page.