Fujino Family Residence Main House

About the Fujino Family Residence Main House

The Fujino Family Residence Main House (藤野家住宅主屋, Fujino-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a 1-story wooden farmhouse built in 1893 in Fujiidera 2-chome, Fujiidera City, Osaka Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2012.

It stands in the middle of the estate facing north, under a hip-and-gable Irimoya-zukuri roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles with lean-to Geya eaves running all the way round. The Agency for Cultural Affairs calls it a large-scale farmhouse, and the data field of its database gives a building area of 396 square meters. The east gate and row house on the same estate covers 83 square meters, so the main house is nearly five times its size.

Osaka Bunkazai Navi, a heritage guide run by the Osaka Association of Architects and Building Engineers and partner groups, notes a smoke vent on the ridge. From the main gate, stepping stones across the entrance garden lead straight to the front of the Fujino Main House.

The front of the Fujino Family Residence Main House

The Fujino Family Residence Main House was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape of the country. The agency describes it as a dignified piece of building, and it finds the reason in the finish of the front wall.

That wall is coated in black plaster, with sasarako shitami boarding at the base: overlapping horizontal boards held in place by vertical battens notched to fit each board, which gives the lower wall a fine rhythm of upright lines. Higher up, the wall is pierced by Mushiko-mado, small windows filled with thick plastered bars.

Photo notes on Osaka Bunkazai Navi add that the upper part with the mushiko windows is the earthen wall of a low Tsushi-nikai loft, that the gable ends are in white plaster, and that only the ground-floor entrance front is black, the rest being plain earth wall. Black plaster is generally made by working soot or ink into lime plaster and polishing it to a sheen, and it takes far more labor than white. Here that effort went into the one face a guest meets first after passing through the gate.

Inside the Fujino Main House

According to the agency, the east side of the Fujino Family Residence Main House is a wide earth-floored Doma, and the raised floor has its formal Zashiki rooms toward the front. Osaka Bunkazai Navi describes the raised part as a Rokumadori plan of six rooms.

The zashiki have verandas on both sides and look out over a stroll garden. The entrance has a Shikidai, the low board step where guests of standing were formally received, and an entrance room behind it, fittings that suit the house of a family that served as village headmen.

The split between an earth floor to the east and formal rooms at the front and west matches the layout of the estate. The row house, barn and storehouses line the east side, so working space runs that way, while the rooms for receiving guests face the main garden beyond the roji gate. The plan of the house seems to mirror how the whole estate was used.

Visiting the Fujino Family Residence Main House

The Fujino Family Residence Main House is a private home and the interior is not open. It stands in the middle of the plot, with the main gate, wing walls and front garden between it and the north road, so expect to see little more than the great roof over the gate.

Please do not go through the gate, and keep photographs to the exterior from the street. Directions to the estate are on the Fujino Family Residence (Fujiidera) page.