Ueda Family Residence Main House

A Suburban House of 1933

The Ueda Family Residence Main House (上田家住宅主屋) is a single-storey timber house of 1933 in Higashi-Toyonaka-cho, Toyonaka City, Osaka Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on August 13, 2012 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Agency records a single-storey timber building under a gabled roof of pantiles, with a building area of 134 square metres; registration number 27-0550.

A Western Parlour and a Central Corridor

The Ueda Family Residence Main House stands toward the north of its plot on a hilltop residential estate (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The entrance opens on the east side, and right beside it is a reception room finished as a Western interior. The living quarters to the west are planned around a central corridor, with a veranda running along the south side.

A central-corridor plan (naka-rōka) runs a passage through the middle of the house with rooms on either side, so that the family rooms can line up along the sunny south side and each room can be reached without crossing another. At the Ueda house, the Western parlour for guests sits with the entrance at the end of this Japanese-style range.

Why It Was Registered

The Agency describes the Ueda Family Residence Main House as a typical early Showa suburban house of the wayō heichi type, which keeps a Japanese house of tatami rooms and adds a Western reception room, usually by the entrance; it was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape.

It was built in 1933, the year Toyonaka City gives for the start of housing development around Higashi-Toyonaka, and so shows a home raised as the new suburb was being laid out.

What to Look For

The thing to notice is how a Western reception room and the entrance attach to a gabled Japanese house (Agency for Cultural Affairs); on the east front the two styles sit side by side.

The veranda along the south side shows how the corridor-planned living rooms open toward the garden. The 1940 annex stands to the east of the main house, and a storage shed of the same year as the house stands behind it.

Visiting

No official information on visits was found. The house may still be lived in, so please stay off the property and look only from the street.