Uno Family Residence

About the Uno Family Residence

The Uno Family Residence (宇野家住宅, Uno-ke Jūtaku) is the home of a metal-casting family in Kitamachi, Kaizuka City, Osaka Prefecture, built around a main house from the late Edo period (1830 to 1867); five of its structures, the main house, tea house, east storehouse, west storehouse and high wall, became Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on March 18, 2003.

The house faces the old Kishū Kaidō highway. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the living quarters of the Uno Family Residence are gathered in the northwest part of a large plot, and the rest of the land is given over to the family foundry. Home and workplace share the same ground, and the house is privately owned.

From Flour Milling to Casting

Two official sources tell the story of the Uno Family Residence and its owners in different ways.

Kaizuka City says the Uno were a branch of the Kanaya Chōemon family, casters (imoji) based in Kaizuka. The branch heads took the name Mohei generation after generation and ran a flour-milling business. Around 1887 the Uno took over the Chōemon family's foundry, and the city notes that the trade has continued ever since.

The main Chōemon line cast metal throughout the Edo period. It belonged to the Senshū casters' guild, which answered to the Matsugi family of Kyoto, the house that held authority over casters across Japan.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs, by contrast, sums up the Uno as a family that had worked in casting since the Edo period. The published records do not make clear whether that line folds the head family's history into the branch's, or whether the two sources simply differ. Both accounts are given here.

Layout and Dates of the Uno Family Residence

Kaizuka City describes the main house standing toward the northwest corner of the plot, with the tea house to its northeast, the west storehouse at the western corner and the east storehouse behind it, so that four buildings surround the main house. The Agency is more precise: the west storehouse sits in the northwest corner beyond a front garden north of the main house, and the east storehouse in the southeast corner of the garden behind it. Along the western frontage on the highway, the high wall links the main house to the west storehouse.

The Agency's database gives these dates and structures:

• Main house: late Edo period (1830 to 1867). Single-storey wooden building, tiled roof, building area 374 square meters. Said to have been built after the Ansei Nankai earthquake of 1854
• East storehouse: late Edo period (1830 to 1867). 2-storey dozo-zukuri storehouse, tiled roof, building area 26 square meters
• West storehouse: Meiji period (1868 to 1911). 2-storey dozo-zukuri storehouse, tiled roof, building area 30 square meters
• High wall: Meiji period (1868 to 1911). Wooden, tiled roof, 7.3 meters long
• Tea house: Taishō period (1912 to 1925). Single-storey wooden building, tiled roof, building area 23 square meters

All five structures of the Uno Family Residence were registered on the same day, each on the criterion that it contributes to the historic landscape of the country.

Visiting and Getting There

The Uno Family Residence is a private home and is not open to the public. There are no visiting hours or admission fees, and visitors cannot enter the grounds or see inside any of the buildings. Kaizuka City's cultural property page lists no open days.

What can be seen is the western frontage on the old Kishū Kaidō: the street front of the main house and the high wall running north from it. Judging from the layout, the tea house and east storehouse stand deeper inside and are hard to see from the road. Please take photographs only from the public street and keep clear of the entrances to the house and the foundry.

The nearest station is Kaizuka Station on the Nankai Main Line and the Mizuma Railway. The Uno Family Residence is about 760 meters away on foot, a walk of roughly 10 minutes. There is no parking for visitors.