Harinakano Nakano Acupuncture Former Reception Hall

A building with two faces

Harinakano Nakano Acupuncture Former Reception Hall is the building in which the Nakano family of Higashisumiyoshi Ward, Osaka, once received important guests, built in 1902 and entered on the national register as Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 5 December 2019.

It joins the south-west side of the treatment hall and faces east. Two storeys, timber framed with sections built in dozo-zukuri storehouse construction, covering 51 square metres. The roof is hongawarabuki, the heavier system of round and flat tiles, and a small hipped-gable porch is set into the northern part of the east face.

The walls change from one side to another, and that is the point of the building. East and north are shinkabe work, the posts left exposed against plaster panels, with vertical boarding below. The south face abandons this entirely: plaster is carried up over the eaves soffit, the timber disappears, and the elevation becomes a storehouse wall.

South is where the street runs. The southern wall of Harinakano Nakano Acupuncture Former Reception Hall was made to match the document storehouse and general storehouse standing beside it, so that a passer-by reads an unbroken run of storehouses. Inside the compound it is a reception room; outside it is part of a wall.

Why it was registered

The listing criterion is contribution to the historic landscape of the country. The deliberate storehouse treatment of the southern wall, made to sit in harmony with the storehouses next to it, is exactly what the criterion is aimed at.

The building is attributed, together with the front gate and the storehouses, to Kongo Gumi, the Osaka firm long associated with temple and shrine carpentry. All three went up in 1902, which points to the southern frontage being conceived as a single piece of work rather than assembled over decades.

That a household kept a building purely for receiving guests says something about the family's standing. These were the years when the 41st head had taken a medical qualification and patients were arriving from across the Kinki region.

What to look for

Walk the southern street watching the wall finish. The south face of Harinakano Nakano Acupuncture Former Reception Hall is plastered over the eaves and shows no posts at all. Turn the corner to the east and the same building produces exposed posts and quiet framed panels.

The porch sits in the northern part of the east face, its gable turned to the front. This was the guests' entrance. The way its small roof tucks under the wall of the upper storey is visible from outside.

Compare the roofs along the street. This one is laid with round and flat tiles, while the storehouses beside it use lighter pantiles or sheet metal. Of the four roofs on the southern frontage, only this one has deep shadow between the courses.

Seeing it

Harinakano Nakano Acupuncture Former Reception Hall is not open to visitors. The compound cannot be entered and the interior is closed.

The southern street is where you see it. Walking from the west you pass, in order, the former reception hall, the front gate, the document storehouse and the general storehouse, so starting at the western end makes the sequence easy to follow. The porch on the east face looks into the compound and is hard to see from the road. There is no admission charge and no opening hours.

Keep photography to the exterior from the road. Directions from the station and the viewing conditions for the compound as a whole are set out on the Harinakano Nakano Acupuncture page.