Ikenaga Family Residence (Osaka)

The layout of the Ikenaga Family Residence

The Ikenaga Family Residence (池永家住宅, Ikenaga-ke Jūtaku) is the estate of a wealthy farming family in Nozato, Nishiyodogawa Ward, Osaka City, where five buildings dating from the mid-Edo period to the early Shōwa period were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2001.

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the plot is rectangular. Along its south side runs a long east-west Nagayamon gatehouse, and the tall walls that continue from either end of it complete the formal front. Beyond the gate, at the center, stands the 2-story main house. The annex sits beside it to the west, linked by a passage. The inner storehouse occupies the northeast corner of the main house and is now joined to a later extension, while the rice and tool storehouse stands on its own to the north of the annex.

Gatehouse and walls at the front, the house in the middle, the annex to the west, storehouses to the north and northeast: the Ikenaga estate keeps every part a farming household of standing needed, all on one plot.

History of the Ikenaga Family Residence

The agency describes the Ikenaga as a family of rich farmers in the northwest of Osaka City, close to the mouth of the Yodo River. Its note on the annex mentions the former village of Nozato, which tells us the Ikenaga Family Residence was built as a rural homestead in what was then farmland.

The buildings fall into five layers of date. The oldest, the main house, has a frame from around the mid-18th century, was enlarged and altered in the Bunka era (1804 to 1818), and reached its present form in the middle of the Meiji period. The gatehouse was built in 1846 (Kōka 3) and the inner storehouse in the late Edo period. The annex and the rice and tool storehouse came much later, in the early Shōwa period, and the storehouse is said to be roughly contemporary with the annex.

Some 180 years separate the frame of the main house from the last storehouse. The five buildings of the Ikenaga Family Residence were not laid out in one campaign; they record a household adding to its home one generation at a time.

The five registered buildings of the Ikenaga Family Residence

All five buildings were entered on the register of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on November 20, 2001, under the consecutive registration numbers 27-0158 to 27-0162. The main house, gatehouse, inner storehouse, and rice and tool storehouse were registered as contributing to the historic landscape of the nation; the annex was registered as a model of design.

• Ikenaga Family Residence Main House: frame from around the mid-18th century, present form from the mid-Meiji period. Wooden, 2 stories, tiled roof, building area 161 square meters
• Ikenaga Family Residence Nagayamon Gate: 1846. Wooden, single story, tiled roof, building area 22 square meters
• Ikenaga Family Residence Annex: early Shōwa period. Wooden, single story, tiled roof, building area 16 square meters
• Ikenaga Family Residence Inner Storehouse: late Edo period. Earthen-walled storehouse construction, 2 stories, tiled roof, building area 20 square meters
• Ikenaga Family Residence Rice Storehouse and Tool Storehouse: early Shōwa period. Earthen-walled storehouse construction, 2 stories, tiled roof, building area 24 square meters

The cultural property lists published by Osaka Prefecture and Nishiyodogawa Ward name the rice storehouse and the tool storehouse separately and give the Ikenaga Family Residence a count of 6. In the national register, however, the rice and tool storehouse is a single building, and the registrations number five.

Visiting the Ikenaga Family Residence

The Ikenaga Family Residence is privately owned and lived in, and we found no notice from the ward or the prefecture that the buildings or grounds are open to the public. The agency's description, written at the time of registration, says the annex was then used as a small local history museum showing records of the old village of Nozato; whether it is open today is not known. If you go, please look at the gatehouse and walls from the street and do not step inside the gate.

The nearest station to the Ikenaga Family Residence is JR Tsukamoto Station, about 600 meters away in a straight line by map coordinates. Osaka Asobo, the walking-tour program run by the Osaka Community Tourism Promotion Council, ends its Nozato walk, which starts at Tsukamoto Station, at the Ikenaga house.