Ishikawa Family Residence

An Old Village Household in Fukae

The Ishikawa Family Residence (石川家住宅, Ishikawa-ke Jūtaku) is the compound of an old family of the former Fukae village in Fukae-minami, Higashinari Ward, Osaka City, where a late Edo-period main house and five further structures, two storehouses, a gate and two walls, added from around 1889 into the early Showa era were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on 27 February 2023.

The six registered structures are the main house, the raised storehouse, the utensil storehouse, the nagayamon gate, the southwest wall and the northeast wall. All belong to Ishikawa Co., Ltd., and their registration numbers run in sequence from 27-0864 to 27-0869.

Their dates spread across more than half a century. The Agency for Cultural Affairs places the main house somewhere between 1830 and 1868; the raised storehouse, the gate and both walls date from around 1889, and the utensil storehouse is later still, from the early Showa era. Read together, the six dates trace a household adding to its property generation by generation.

A Village of Sedge Hats

Every one of the Agency's six descriptions opens the same way, introducing the building as part of an old household of Fukae village.

Fukae, on the eastern side of Osaka, was once known for sedge. According to Higashinari Ward, tradition holds that a clan of hat-makers settled here from Kasanui in the old province of Yamato, and in the Edo period pilgrims setting out for the Ise Grand Shrine bought their travelling hats in Fukae. Sedge coasters woven in the district are said to have been shipped abroad in the Meiji and Taisho eras.

The ward also notes that white plastered walls and earthen storehouses still line some of Fukae's streets. The gate and walls of the Ishikawa Family Residence form one such stretch of street frontage.

A House Built with Floods in Mind

Look at the six structures side by side and a preoccupation with water keeps surfacing.

Papers issued with the Council for Cultural Affairs recommendation of November 2022 state that the raised storehouse was built in the wake of flood damage in 1885, and that it takes the form called a dangura: a storehouse set on a tall stone base. The same papers point to the suspended Buddhist altar in the main house as another piece of accumulated know-how for coping with floods.

The utensil storehouse, immediately south of the raised storehouse, stands on level ground. The Agency reads the difference in height between the two storehouses as a sign that they served different purposes, though it does not say what each one held.

How the Compound Is Laid Out

The nagayamon gate opens on the south side of the plot. From its western end the southwest wall runs west, cuts across the southwest corner at an angle and turns north, continuing for 41 metres to the site of a former detached reception wing west of the main house.

The raised storehouse occupies the northwest corner. The Agency also calls it the inuigura, after inui, the old name for the northwest direction. South of it, towards the north end of the west side, stands the utensil storehouse, with earthen walls running from it to north and south to close the outer edge of the plot.

The northeast wall starts at the storehouse on the north side, turns a right angle at the northeast corner and follows the east side to the northeast corner of the main house, 29 metres in all. The main house sits towards the east of the plot. An annex continues east of the gate, but it is not part of the registration.

The main house and the raised storehouse were registered as models of their building type; the utensil storehouse, the gate and both walls for their contribution to the historic townscape. The compound is valued both for its buildings and for the street edge its gate and walls create.

Visiting

The Ishikawa Family Residence is private property owned by Ishikawa Co., Ltd., and no regular public opening could be confirmed. Plan on the grounds and interiors being closed.

The gate, the two walls and the two storehouses stand along the edge of the plot, so their exteriors can be seen from the surrounding streets. Take photographs from the public road only and do not step inside the gate. This is a residential neighbourhood, so keep clear of passing traffic if you linger.

The nearest station is Shin-Fukae on the Osaka Metro Sennichimae Line; the walk east to the house takes about 10 minutes.

The 2022 recommendation papers also describe the raised storehouse as one of the exhibition buildings of the Fukae Marugoto Museum, a residents' project that uses local buildings as a neighbourhood-wide museum. Whether that project ever opens the house to visitors could not be confirmed.