Tanaka Family Residence (Takaminosato, Matsubara)

A Farming Family's Compound on the Takami Shrine Approach

The Tanaka Family Residence (Takaminosato, Matsubara; 田中家住宅) is a farming family's compound in Takaminosato 3-chome, Matsubara City, Osaka Prefecture, where a main house built around 1872 and four early-Showa outbuildings, a nagaya gate, storehouse, annex and outer wall, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on August 3, 2006. The five carry consecutive registration numbers, 27-0369 to 27-0373.

Matsubara City describes it as a farmhouse whose outbuildings survive, so the layout of the whole homestead is still legible. When the main house was built the area was Takami village in Tanboku county, and according to the city many heads of the Tanaka family took the name Motoemon. The compound faces the approach to Takami Shrine.

How the Compound Is Laid Out

The main house stands toward the north of the plot on an east-west axis. Northeast of it, along the northern edge, is the nagaya gate, so the family came and went from the north. A two-storey storehouse stands on the western edge southwest of the house, the annex runs along the boundary to the southeast, and the outer wall encloses the western end of the north side and the west side south of the storehouse.

Only the main house was registered as a model of its type; the other four were registered for their contribution to the historic landscape. The gate, storehouse and wall on the perimeter give the compound its face to the street.

The main house dates to around 1872 and the others to the early Showa period. One of the city's history-walk articles suggests the outbuildings followed soon after the house in early Meiji, but both the city's heritage page and the national database date them to early Showa, and this article follows those.

Visiting

The Tanaka Family Residence in Takaminosato is still lived in, and Matsubara City states that the grounds and buildings cannot be visited. The nagaya gate and outer wall on the north and the storehouse and wall on the west face public roads, so their exteriors can be seen from the street. Photograph from the road and be considerate of the residents.