Kawasaki Mitsuo Family Residence Main House

What Is the Kawasaki Mitsuo Family Residence Main House?

The Kawasaki Mitsuo Family Residence Main House (川崎光雄家住宅主屋, Kawasaki Mitsuo-ke Jūtaku Shuoku) is a single-storey timber house of 1903 on the old Tōkaidō highway in Tehara, Ritto City, Shiga Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 21 April 1998. With a building area of 209 square meters, it is far larger than either of the two storehouses registered with it.

Although its lot fronts the highway, the house does not sit on the street line. It is drawn back from the road, keeping a little distance from the old route.

A Hidden Loft Behind Plastered Walls

The Kawasaki Mitsuo Family Residence Main House has a Tsushi-nikai, a low loft floor tucked under the roof. Because a loft of this kind is normally not counted as a full storey, the house is officially recorded as single-storey.

Around that loft level the walls are fully plastered over, so the posts and beams are sealed inside the wall rather than left exposed. The technique is known as nurikome.

At the east end the roof steps down to a lower ridge. Japanese builders call this an Ochimune, and it gives the long house a distinctly stepped silhouette.

The Swelling Roof and Its Smoke Vent

The main roof of the Kawasaki Mitsuo Family Residence Main House is tiled and has a gentle Teri-mukuri, a slight upward bulge in the roof plane. It is the opposite of the upswept curve familiar from temple roofs, and it softens the whole outline of the house.

A small raised roof sits on the ridge as a smoke vent, known as a kemuridashi. It let smoke from the kitchen stove escape, a reminder that meals were once cooked over an open hearth or stove inside the house.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes Kawasaki Mitsuo's main house as following the farmhouse type built in this district since the Edo period while showing a polish it associates with the Taishō era. The traditional pieces are all there: loft, stepped ridge and smoke vent. What lifts them is the soft, rounded roofline.

Why It Was Registered, and a Question of Date

The Kawasaki Mitsuo Family Residence Main House was registered under registration number 25-0033 as a building that has become a model of design. The North and South Storehouses, listed the same day, were registered for their contribution to the historic landscape, so the main house is the only one of the three recognised for its design.

The national database dates the house to 1903. Ritto City's list of cultural properties, however, groups the main house with the two storehouses and assigns all three to the Taishō period, and the database's own commentary also speaks of Taishō refinement. This article follows the national database and notes the disagreement here.

Visiting the Main House

The Kawasaki Mitsuo Family Residence Main House is a private home and its interior is not open to the public. Please stay off the property and look only from the public road.

Because the house stands back from the highway, what you can see depends on where you stand. Look for three things: the rounded outline of the tiled roof, the smoke vent on the ridge, and the lower ridge stepping down at the east end.