Okuno Family Residence Main House

A main house with a headman's presence

Okuno Family Residence Main House (奥野家住宅主屋, Okuno-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a late-Edo farmhouse of between 1751 and 1829 in Nakasakurazuka, Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on July 8, 2008, under number 27-0493, together with its former grain-pounding shed as an appurtenance.

It stands near the middle of the plot, facing south. With a building area of 313 square meters it is a big farmhouse, the heart of the home of the Okuno family, who served as Shōya of Sakurazuka village through the Edo period. It was renovated in 1998.

A great roof and nine rooms

The Okuno Family Residence Main House is a timber building of the Tsushi-nikai type, with a low upper level tucked under the roof. The agency's structure field calls it single-storey while its commentary describes a tsushi second floor; the simplest reading is a house that looks single-storey outside but hides a low loft inside. The roof is hipped-and-gabled, Irimoya-zukuri, in pantiles.

Toward the east end of the front is the main entrance, capped by its own irimoya roof with a gentle mukuri, a slight convex swelling of the roof surface that feels softer than an upswept curve. Deep eaves wrap the south and west sides; the city describes them as tiled canopies running around the house.

Inside are a broad Doma earth floor and a raised floor that was originally a grid of nine rooms, three by three. An ordinary farmhouse had four. Twice that and more reflects the work of a headman's house: village meetings, visiting officials, and the entertaining that went with both.

Clues for reconstruction

The Okuno Family Residence Main House was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape of the country, with the agency praising it as a large farmhouse that carries the dignity of an early modern village headman's residence.

The city goes further. Renovation changed much of the house beyond the reception rooms, but the beams and post positions are largely original, and marks in the timber plus a kasōzu, a geomantic house plan kept by the family, would allow the first form to be reconstructed almost completely. Being able to trace the building's changes in both documents and fabric is counted among its scholarly strengths.

The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake badly damaged the homestead, and the 1998 renovation belongs to the repairs that followed.

The main house as a gallery

Today the Okuno Family Residence Main House also serves as the gallery of Sakura no Shōbei. According to the family, the gallery occupies what were once guest rooms, arranged so that with the sliding fusuma and shoji removed they become one space of more than fifty tatami mats.

That is how a headman's reception rooms were meant to work: divided by sliding doors most of the time, thrown open for occasions. On a concert day, look along the rows of posts and up at the beams, which the city describes as largely original.

Visiting

The Okuno Family Residence Main House is a private home and normally closed. You can go inside when concerts, jōruri recitals or craft exhibitions are held in the main house; the programme is on the Sakura no Shōbei website. Follow the organiser's instructions on photography at each event. Directions and café hours are on the Okuno Family Residence (Toyonaka) page.