Kitagawa Family Residence (Otsu)

The Kitagawa Family Residence in Otsu

The Kitagawa Family Residence (北川家住宅) in Kyomachi 1-chome, Otsu City, Shiga Prefecture, is a machiya townhouse of the late Edo period whose main house and storehouse were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on April 28, 2010 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Their registration numbers are 25-0280 for the main house and 25-0281 for the storehouse.

The house faces north onto Kyomachi-dori, which follows the line of the old Tokaido highway. On October 1, 2024, Otsu City listed the main house and the storehouse together as its Historic Landscape Building No. 3; the three buildings listed that day were the first privately owned buildings the city had chosen (Otsu City).

A different family's building of the same name, the Kitagawa Family Residence Storehouse in Miyake-cho, Moriyama, is also a registered property.

The House and the Storehouse

The main house fronts the street: a two-storey timber building with a 12-metre frontage (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Otsu City explains that it combines two houses, the eastern three bays from the late Edo period and the western three bays said to have been added around 1887.

The storehouse stands to the south, behind the main house across an inner courtyard, with its door and sheltered work space on the north side facing the house (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The sequence of house, courtyard and store running back from the street is intact. Each building is described on its own page.

Visiting

The Kitagawa Family Residence is privately owned, and no official information on interior access was found. From the street you see the front of the main house; the storehouse is behind it and does not face Kyomachi-dori (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The house is in Kyomachi 1-chome, about 500 metres north of JR Otsu Station in a straight line. Please view it from the street without disturbing the residents.