Shotokukan

About Shotokukan

Shotokukan (樟徳館, Shōtokukan) is a residence completed in 1939 beside the Nagase River in Hishiyanishi 2-chome, Higashiosaka City, Osaka Prefecture, and six of its structures, the main house, storehouse, guardian shrine, gate, east wall and south wall, became Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on October 18, 2000. It was built as the private home of Mori Heizo, one of Osaka's leading timber merchants and the founder of the Shoin Gakuen school group.

Mori died in June 1960 at the age of 85, and under his will the house passed to the school. Only then did it receive the name Shotokukan. Shoin Gakuen Educational Corporation still owns it, and the school says it is used for home economics classes at Osaka Shoin Women's University, among other things.

Seven Years on the Site of a Film Studio

Before Shotokukan, the land held the Nagase studio of the Teikoku Kinema film company. According to the school, it lay at the northern end of the Fuse Tatsumidai housing estate that the Osaka Electric Tramway, forerunner of today's Kintetsu Railway, began developing in 1925. The studio burned down in 1930, and Mori bought the site afterward.

Mori had set up on his own as a timber dealer in Osaka in 1901, then saw an opening in the ships that carried the wood and founded the Morihei Steamship company in 1915. In 1917 he received approval to open the Shoin girls' high school, the starting point of the school group.

Work on Shotokukan began around 1932 with the collection of prized timber from all over Japan. A sawmill was set up on the neighboring lot so that every piece could be cut from the log on site. Construction started in February 1936, and photographs show most of the exterior standing by about May the following year. Counting the planning, the house took seven years and was finished in 1939. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database likewise notes that the owner chose and cut the fine timber himself and used it lavishly in the main house.

Outside, the house is entirely Japanese in character, while the rooms mix Japanese and Western design. The school describes the two-story main house as among the finest pine-built houses in the Kansai region.

Layout and Registration of the Six Structures

The commentary in the Agency's database places the six Shotokukan structures as follows.

• The gate stands toward the south end of the east side of the grounds, along the Nagase River, set back a little from the road. It is a single-bay Yakuimon about 3.15 meters wide.
• The east wall is a roofed wall running north along the river from the gate's north end, about 24 meters long.
• The south wall leaves the gate's south end, turns at the southeast corner of the grounds and runs west along the south edge. At about 70 meters, it is the longest of the six.
• The main house is a two-story timber building with a floor area of 1,169 square meters. A carriage porch under an Irimoya-zukuri roof sits at the center, with a single-story reception wing to the left and a two-story living wing to the right.
• The storehouse stands in the northwest corner. It joins two two-story storehouses set side by side from east to west, with a floor area of 133 square meters.
• The guardian shrine, a shrine to the household god, sits at the back of the northwest corner on the south side of the storehouse, with a floor area of 3.3 square meters.

All six were registered on October 18, 2000, and announced on November 6. Their registration numbers run consecutively from 27-0113 to 27-0118, and every one was registered as a model of form. All six date from 1939 as well, so the estate one owner laid out in a single campaign is registered as a set, from the gate and walls on the street to the household shrine at the back.

Visiting Shotokukan and Getting There

Shotokukan belongs to the school and is normally closed to the public. Shoin Gakuen holds a public opening once every four years in autumn, most recently on November 9 and 10, 2024. The 2020 opening was called off because of COVID-19, so the 2024 event was the first in eight years.

In 2024 the house was open from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., with entry allowed from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Admission was free, no booking was needed, and visitors of junior high school age and older were admitted, with younger children welcome alongside a guardian. On both days a talk on what to look for was held in the garden. The school asked visitors not to wear heeled shoes or bring large bags, and noted that the toilets inside the building were generally not available because it is a cultural property.

If the four-year cycle holds, the next opening would fall in 2028, but check the school's announcements for dates. Inquiries go to the Shoin Gakuen public relations office. These details were checked against the school's notices on October 5, 2026.

On other days, the gate and the east wall can be seen from the road along the Nagase River, and the south wall from the lane along the south side of the grounds. Everything inside the walls is school property, so please look from the road.

By train, get off at Nagase Station on the Kintetsu Osaka Line and walk north along the Nagase River for about 5 minutes. From Kawachi-Kosaka Station on the Kintetsu Nara Line, it is about 20 minutes on foot south along the river. There is no parking, and the school asks visitors not to come by car.