Matsumiya Family Residence Main House

An 18th-Century Farmhouse under Two Roof Forms

The Matsumiya Family Residence Main House (松宮家住宅主屋, Matsumiya-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a single-storey timber farmhouse built in 1744 in Sugi, Hirakata City, Osaka Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 5 December 2019.

It stands in the centre of the family plot, facing south. With a building area of 176 square metres it is both the largest and the oldest of the 4 registered buildings of the Matsumiya Family Residence. The roof is thatch (Kayabuki), now protected by a temporary metal cover.

The house was altered in the early Meiji years and again around 1955 and 1960. Even so, the Agency for Cultural Affairs regards it as the core of a compound that keeps the character of the mid-18th century.

Yamato-mune to the West, Hip-and-Gable to the East

The first thing to notice about the Matsumiya Family Residence Main House is that its single roof changes shape from one end to the other. The east side is a hip-and-gable roof (Irimoya-zukuri); the west side is in the yamato-mune style. Lean-to roofs (Geya) run around all 4 sides of the building.

Yamato-mune describes a steep thatched roof whose gable end is framed by a white wall rising above the roof surface and capped with tiles. It is considered characteristic of farmhouses in and around the Nara Basin. Here that form is used for the west half and joined to a hip-and-gable east half under one roof.

The surrounding lean-to roofs sit below the great thatched roof and give the exterior two distinct eave lines, one above the other.

An Earthen Floor and Four Rooms

Inside, the Matsumiya Family Residence Main House is divided into an earthen-floored work area (Doma) on the west and living rooms on the east. The rooms are arranged as 4, in 2 rows front and back. The room on the south side at the far end from the doma, the south-east corner, is the zashiki, the formal reception room.

That room has a decorative alcove and a butsuma, a space for the household Buddhist altar. The alcove for receiving guests and the altar for honouring ancestors are gathered in the one room furthest from the working floor.

Just as the roof changes form from west to east, the interior splits into the doma to the west and the living rooms to the east. Keeping that division in mind makes it easier to picture the unseen interior when looking at the house from outside.

The building was registered as contributing to the historic landscape of the country.

Seeing the Matsumiya Family Residence Main House

The Matsumiya Family Residence Main House is not open to the public, and neither the doma nor the zashiki can be visited. The grounds cannot be entered.

The house stands in the middle of the plot, with the front gate to the south and the storehouses to the north between it and the streets. Expect to see no more than part of its roof above walls and the gate; how much is visible depends on walls and planting on site.

Directions and the general conditions for visiting are on the Matsumiya Family Residence page.