Minami Family Residence Main House

About the Minami Family Residence Main House

The Minami Family Residence Main House (南家住宅主屋, Minami-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is the principal dwelling of a former village-headman family in Jinenda, Hannan City, Osaka Prefecture, built around 1889 and registered, together with its early Taishō extension, as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2005.

It stands a little east of the center of the estate, facing south. The main ridge runs east to west. The eastern half is an earth-floored doma, the working area of a Japanese farmhouse, and the western half holds raised, floored rooms. The roof is a hip-and-gable irimoya form covered in pantiles, and the space beneath it is used as a low half-story known as tsushi.

The building covers 240 square meters, but it is not a single block. A formal entrance hall with its own hip-and-gable roof projects from the southwest corner, a reception wing continues to the west of it, and a kitchen wing runs north from the rear. Each wing faces a different way, and together they separate the business of receiving guests from the business of daily life.

Why the Main House Was Registered

The Minami Family Residence Main House was registered as a building that contributes to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs singles out its size and bearing, fitting for an old established family, and its role as a focal point for the district.

The Minami served as village headmen in the Edo period and as local administrators after 1868. A shikidai entrance, with a low step-platform where formal visitors were received, was a mark of that kind of standing. Here the entrance is not tucked into the main block but built as a wing in its own right, with a separate roof.

What to Look For

Read the plan as two halves, east and west, and most of this house makes sense. On the east, the doma connects to the kitchen wing behind it: this was the side for cooking and work. On the west, the floored rooms connect to the entrance hall and the reception wing: this was the side for guests. The split is written directly into the arrangement of the wings.

The registration also covers the early Taishō extension, so the Minami Family Residence Main House is valued as it grew, not only as first built. The later additions are part of its record.

The tsushi half-story under the large roof is typically a storage level, a way of putting the roof space of a big farmhouse to use.

Visiting the Main House

The Minami Family Residence Main House is a private home and its interior is not open. It stands well back behind the front gate and wall, so from the road you will see at most part of its roof.

Please photograph only from the public road. Directions and the layout of the whole estate are covered on the Minami Family Residence (Hannan) page.