Tenrikyo Kitasaka Branch Church

About Tenrikyo Kitasaka Branch Church

Tenrikyo Kitasaka Branch Church (天理教北阪分教会, Tenrikyō Kitasaka Bunkyōkai) is a Tenrikyo church in Katayamacho, Kashiwara City, Osaka Prefecture, whose four structures built around 1939 were listed as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2005.

The buildings did not start out as a church. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the largest of them as a former private house, and Kashiwara City likewise says it was built as a private residence around 1939. Tenrikyo is a religion that originated in present-day Nara Prefecture in the nineteenth century; when and how this house came to serve as one of its churches is not stated in any published primary source.

Four registrations and one unusual wall system

All four structures at Tenrikyo Kitasaka Branch Church were entered on the national list of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on July 12, 2005, with public notice following on August 2. Their registration numbers run consecutively from 27-0317 to 27-0320: the clergy residence, the detached wing, the warehouse and the railing.

Each was registered under the same criterion, as a structure that would be difficult to reproduce. The reason is the way the walls were made. According to the agency, every one of the four uses concrete built around a special wire mesh recorded as the "Mora-system structural mesh" (モーラ式構成網, mōra-shiki kōsei-mō). The agency calls this method unparalleled in its note on the clergy residence and repeats the point for the railing.

On the official register the clergy residence, detached wing and warehouse are classed as timber buildings, while the railing is listed as concrete.

A shared taste runs through the design as well. Japanese tiled roofs are paired with Western details: a cornice on the clergy residence, balustrade-style ornament under the upper windows of the detached wing, and Corinthian capitals at the warehouse door. The clergy residence and the warehouse both carry green-glazed roof tiles.

How the Tenrikyo Kitasaka Branch Church site is laid out

The clergy residence is the anchor of the site. It is a three-storey timber building formed by setting a lookout on top of a two-storey house, crowned by an octagonal rooftop tower. Kashiwara City notes that this white tower rises above the surrounding roofs.

The agency places the warehouse on the west side of the clergy residence and the railing along the approach on the south side of the plot. Published sources do not say where the detached wing stands.

By size, the clergy residence covers 306 square metres, the detached wing 106 square metres and the warehouse 104 square metres; the railing runs for 13 metres.

Names used for Tenrikyo Kitasaka Branch Church

Kitasaka is the reading of the characters 北阪 in the church's name. The national database lists the four structures separately, each under the church name followed by the building name. Kashiwara City's list of local cultural properties gathers them under a single entry, Tenrikyo Kitasaka Branch Church, with a quantity of one building each for the clergy residence, detached wing and warehouse, plus one railing. The same city list gives the owner as a private individual.

Visiting Tenrikyo Kitasaka Branch Church

Tenrikyo Kitasaka Branch Church is not open to the public, and Kashiwara City states this plainly on its cultural property page. The site is private land. Visitors cannot enter the grounds, so any look at the buildings is limited to what can be seen from the surrounding public streets.

If you take photographs, do so from the street and keep in mind that this is a residential neighbourhood.

The nearest station is Kawachi-Kokubu on the Kintetsu Osaka Line. Tenrikyo Kitasaka Branch Church lies northwest of the station, roughly 300 metres away in a straight line. Information on the property as a cultural asset is published by the Cultural Properties Division of the Kashiwara City Board of Education (telephone 072-976-3430).