Sakanoue Family Residence Detached Room

What Is the Sakanoue Family Residence Detached Room?

The Sakanoue Family Residence Detached Room (阪之上家住宅離れ座敷, Sakanoue-ke Jūtaku Hanare Zashiki) is a single-storey timber reception wing built in 1934 in Hamadera Showa-cho, Nishi Ward, Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 18 November 1999. With a building area of 107 square meters, it is the largest of the five registered structures on the lot.

A hanare zashiki is a separate wing for receiving guests, set apart from the family's everyday rooms. The Sakanoue Detached Room stands near the middle of the long, narrow lot, southeast of the brick Western-style building. A storehouse is attached to its east side. The main house to the north has been rebuilt in recent years, but the corridor that joined the Detached Room to the earlier main house survives.

A Hipped Roof with Copper-Edged Eaves

The Sakanoue Family Residence Detached Room has a Yosemune-zukuri hipped roof laid with Sangawara-buki pan tiles. Tiled Hisashi canopies run around three sides, south, west and north, and only their very edges are sheathed in copper. That thin metal strip along the tile ends makes the eave line look sharper and lighter than tile alone would.

Above the canopies, the reception section is given the look of a Tsushi-nikai, the low half-storey found under the roofs of older town houses. The building has only one floor, yet the stepped outline of canopy and main roof lends it the height and weight of something larger.

At the southeast corner a Chashitsu tea room projects from the main block, adding a small roof of its own to an otherwise regular outline.

A Formal Tatami Reception Room

At the heart of the interior is a Zashiki reception room fitted with a Tokonoma alcove, display shelves and a shoin bay. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the finish as high quality. That a family in a new 1930s suburb, already owning a brick Western-style building, added a full formal reception room and tea room under one roof says a good deal about how the house was used.

The Sakanoue Family Residence Detached Room was registered as a model of design. The storehouse and connecting corridor, built in the same year of 1934, were registered on the same grounds, and together the three form the Japanese-style quarter of the estate.

Seeing the Sakanoue Detached Room

The Sakanoue Family Residence Detached Room is part of a private home, and the interior is not open to visitors. Sakai City asks that the house be viewed from outside only.

Because the Sakanoue Detached Room stands near the centre of the lot, little of it can be seen from the street. Neither the reception room nor the tea room is accessible, so please be content with a glimpse of the roof from the public road and do not enter the grounds.