Okamoto Family Residence Zashiki (Detached Reception Wing)

What Is the Okamoto Family Residence Zashiki?

The Okamoto Family Residence Zashiki (岡本家住宅座敷, Okamoto-ke Jūtaku Zashiki) is a Meiji-era detached reception building in Kitamachi, Kaizuka City, Osaka Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on March 18, 2003.

A Zashiki is a formal tatami room for receiving guests, and a well-to-do household might give it a building of its own, as here. The Okamoto Zashiki stands on its own in the northeast corner of the soy brewing family's property, well away from the main house on the street. On its west side it joins the North Storehouse, the last in a row of three storehouses.

It is a two-storey timber building with a tiled roof and a building area of 67 m², and its upper level is a Tsushi-nikai, a low loft storey. Of the five registered Okamoto buildings, this is the only one from the Meiji era (1868 to 1912); the other four all date from the Edo period.

How the Zashiki Has Changed

The Okamoto Family Residence Zashiki has been adapted over the years to suit the family's daily life. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the eastern half of the ground floor was converted into a dining kitchen and other rooms, and the loft storey was altered in the decade from 1965 to 1974.

That eastern half originally looked quite different. It is said to have had a wing projecting to the south, a through passage with an earthen floor, and a machiai, the waiting room where guests at a tea gathering prepare themselves before being called in. The building was, in other words, designed with both a tea room and its waiting area under one roof.

The alterations reached the eastern half and the upper floor, while the western half still holds its 8-mat room. The Okamoto Zashiki no longer survives in its original form as a whole, but the room that served for tea has not been lost.

The 8-Mat Tea Room of the Okamoto Zashiki

The heart of the Okamoto Family Residence Zashiki is the 8-mat room in the western half of the ground floor. The Agency calls it a well-proportioned room and notes that it was used as a Chashitsu, or tea room. Kaizuka City likewise points to this room as the building's surviving highlight despite later changes.

Tea rooms are generally divided into small, intimate rooms and larger ones known as hiroma, and a room of 8 mats belongs to the larger type. It shows that the Okamotos, a leading merchant family who also served as town elders, kept a proper tea room at the back of their property for receiving guests.

Like the other four buildings, the Zashiki was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape of the country. With a Meiji reception wing added to an Edo-period house and storehouses, the property shows that the family went on investing in their home after 1868.

Visiting the Okamoto Family Residence Zashiki

The Okamoto Family Residence Zashiki is privately owned and not open to the public, so the tea room cannot be seen.

The building sits in the northeast corner of the property, away from the main house on Oshita-suji, and how much of it you see depends on where you stand. Please look only from public roads, do not enter the grounds, and keep photographs to exterior views that do not intrude on the residents. Directions are on the Okamoto Family Residence page.