Tokyo Golf Club Clubhouse

Antonin Raymond's Clubhouse in Sayama

The Tokyo Golf Club Clubhouse (東京ゴルフ倶楽部クラブハウス) was built in 1963 to designs by the architect Antonin Raymond at the heart of a golf course on a terrace north of the Iruma River at Kashiwabara, Sayama City, Saitama Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on November 2, 2018. According to Sayama City, it was the first national registered property in the city.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs records it as two storeys of reinforced concrete and timber with a copper roof and a building area of 1,498 square metres, extended in 1972 and renovated in 1994; registration number 11-0173, owned by the Tokyo Golf Club.

A Century of the Tokyo Golf Club

According to the club, it began with a 1913 proposal by Inoue Junnosuke for a golf club founded by Japanese, and opened at Komazawa in Tokyo in 1914. In 1932 it moved to Asaka in Saitama, where Raymond designed its Western-style clubhouse.

When the army took over the Asaka site, the club merged in 1940 with the Chichibu Country Club at Sayama, the present course. Requisitioned by the US Army after the war, the course was returned in 1952, and for the club's 50th anniversary in 1963 Raymond, architect of the Asaka clubhouse, designed the present building (Tokyo Golf Club).

Why It Was Registered

The Tokyo Golf Club Clubhouse was registered as a building that has become a model of design. The Agency for Cultural Affairs calls it a fine work of Raymond's mature period that shows his style clearly, with much use of log posts and beams and a lodge-like lounge centred on a fireplace.

What to Look For

The Tokyo Golf Club Clubhouse has a reinforced-concrete ground floor and a timber upper floor, with several low-pitched roofs overlapping above an irregular courtyard plan (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Inside, log posts and beams are used throughout, and the lodge-like lounge with its central fireplace is the heart of the building (Sayama City, Agency for Cultural Affairs). The club describes its simple rustic beauty as having long served members as a home for fellowship and relaxation.

Visiting

The Tokyo Golf Club Clubhouse belongs to a private members' golf club and is not open to the public. According to the club, guests play by invitation of a member. The club is at Kashiwabara, Sayama City; telephone 04-2953-9111.