Matsumura Family Residence Main House

An Architect's Own Home in the Hills of Toyonaka

The Matsumura Family Residence Main House (松村家住宅主屋, Matsumura-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a two-story timber suburban house built in 1935 in Higashitoyonaka-cho, Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on December 5, 2007. It was designed by the architect Shimomura Kisaburō, who drew up houses for the Hankyu railway company's residential developments, as his own home. It is a different property from the Edo-period headman's estate of the same name in Shimaizumi, Habikino.

According to Toyonaka City, the house belongs to the Higashi-Toyonaka estate, which the Hankyu railway began developing in 1933, and sits on hilly ground once known as Shimakumayama. When it was built, the plot had an open view to the southwest. The Matsumura family bought it in 1941, and the property takes its present name from them.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs database records it as a two-story timber building with a tiled roof and a building area of 123 square meters.

The Home of a Suburb-Maker

The Matsumura Family Residence Main House was registered under the criterion of having "become a model of design" (registration number 27-0437). The Agency values it as the own home of an architect involved in developing and designing suburban housing in the Kansai region.

Shimomura Kisaburō worked as an engineer for the Kansai Tochi land company, where he designed the Ōmino garden city in Sakai, before becoming a consultant to the Hanshin Kyūkō railway, today's Hankyu. Kansai's private railways built their business partly on opening housing estates along their lines and selling the houses, and Shimomura worked at both scales, planning estates and designing the homes in them.

What such an architect chose for himself is the question this house answers. Toyonaka City describes it as a clear expression of Shimomura's thinking about houses and their surroundings.

Cabin-Style Gables and Pale Vermilion Tiles

The gable ends are what catch the eye. The walls are finished in the okabe manner, with posts covered by plaster, and the gables use brackets (Mochiokuri) of an unusual shape to carry the ridge and wall plates. The Agency describes the combination of these brackets with log posts as cabin-like, and Toyonaka City suggests that the rustic, mountain-village look suited the wooded hillside the estate was cut from.

The roof is laid with glazed tiles in a pale vermilion. Shimomura is said to have designed 4 houses at once on land cleared from the woods, giving each a roof of a different color. Only this one is said to survive, so its pale vermilion roof is the last of those colored roofs on the hill.

Western Rooms with Japanese Touches

The plan puts the living room and dining room in Western style, with Japanese tatami rooms placed at key points. Living and dining rooms form one continuous space, but a small hanging wall in the Sukiya-zukuri manner marks the boundary between them, dividing the room lightly from above. That Japanese detail inside a Western room is the most striking feature of the interior.

In front of the living room is a wide veranda that doubles as a sunroom and links the reception room with the tatami room beside the living room. Upstairs are a 6-mat room with a formal alcove (Tokonoma) and a 4.5-mat room.

The Matsumura family extended the house after buying it in 1941, but according to Toyonaka City the changes respected the original design.

Visiting and Access

The Matsumura Family Residence Main House is a private home. Toyonaka City states that it is not open to the public, and Osaka Bunkazai Navi also lists it as closed. The grounds and building cannot be entered.

Osaka Bunkazai Navi says the house stands in the middle of a plot of about 300 tsubo (roughly 990 square meters), surrounded by plum, cherry, wisteria and maple trees. Published sources do not say how much of the house can be seen from the street. It is a home in a residential neighborhood, so avoid standing at the gate for long or pointing a camera into the grounds.

The nearest station is Shōji on the Osaka Monorail. The house is about 400 meters southeast of the station in a straight line, a walk of roughly 5 to 10 minutes (a map-based estimate).

Sources give different addresses: the Agency for Cultural Affairs database lists 2-20 Higashitoyonaka-cho, and Toyonaka City lists 2-2-40 Higashitoyonaka-cho. Enquiries go to the Cultural Properties Protection Section, Social Education Division, Toyonaka City Board of Education (telephone 06-6858-2581).