Tenrikyo Kitasaka Branch Church Detached Wing

About the Tenrikyo Kitasaka Branch Church Detached Wing

The Tenrikyo Kitasaka Branch Church Detached Wing (天理教北阪分教会離れ, Tenrikyō Kitasaka Bunkyōkai Hanare) is a two-storey timber house of around 1939 in Katayamacho, Kashiwara City, Osaka Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2005.

In Japanese houses a hanare is a secondary dwelling set apart from the main residence. The agency classes this one as a residence rather than a storage building. It has a building area of 106 square metres, close in size to the warehouse on the same plot.

Why the Hanare was registered

The Tenrikyo Kitasaka Branch Church Detached Wing was entered on the national list of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on July 12, 2005, as registration number 27-0318, on the grounds that it would be difficult to reproduce.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs points out that the building looks as if it were built in the Dozo-zukuri manner, the thick-walled style of Japanese storehouses. It is not. Its walls are concrete made with the same "Mora-system structural mesh" (モーラ式構成網) used in the clergy residence.

So the Hanare wears the face of a traditional storehouse while hiding an unusual prewar wall system inside. That mismatch between appearance and construction is the heart of its interest.

What to look for at the Tenrikyo Kitasaka Branch Church Detached Wing

Hipped roofs with offset ridges

The roof of the Tenrikyo Kitasaka Branch Church Detached Wing is a Yosemune-zukuri hipped form built from sections whose ridges are offset from one another, finished in Sangawara-buki interlocking tiles. The result is a stepped roofline rather than a single mass.

Board-style pent eaves

Narrow eaves in the manner of plank roofing wrap around the building at the line between the two floors and shelter the long horizontal windows upstairs. They draw several horizontal bands across walls that would otherwise read as heavy storehouse masonry.

Western balustrade motifs

Beneath the upper windows sits decoration modelled on a Western balustrade. It is a small touch, but it echoes the cornice of the clergy residence and the Corinthian capitals of the warehouse, and it shows the same appetite for mixing Japanese and European detail that runs through the whole site.

Visiting the Tenrikyo Kitasaka Branch Church Detached Wing

The Tenrikyo Kitasaka Branch Church Detached Wing is not open to the public, and neither the building nor the grounds can be entered.

Published sources do not say where on the plot the Tenrikyo Kitasaka Branch Church Detached Wing stands, and no source confirms that any part of it is visible from the surrounding streets. If you are in the area, stay on public land and keep any photography to the street.