Former Kitamuro Hospital Main House

What Is the Former Kitamuro Hospital Main House?

The Former Kitamuro Hospital Main House (旧北室醫院主屋, Kyū Kitamuro Iin Omoya) is a 2-storey wooden doctor's residence of 1901 in Handa, Tsurugi Town, Tokushima Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on August 17, 2020. It dates from the years when the Kitamuro family practiced herbal medicine, and it holds the dispensary and consulting rooms at the front with the family's living quarters behind.

The Kitamuro Main House stands in the southeast corner of the compound, facing south, and has a building area of 158 square meters. It was extended in the early Showa era. The museum on the site refers to it simply as the family house.

Why the Former Kitamuro Hospital Main House Was Registered

Of the 7 Kitamuro structures, only the Former Kitamuro Hospital Main House was registered as a model of form and design, one of the criteria for a Registered Tangible Cultural Property. The other 6 were valued for their contribution to the historic landscape; the main house was judged to set an example through its construction itself. The Agency for Cultural Affairs calls it a solid main house of fine quality.

Its second value is that home and practice share one roof. Behind the entrance, the front rooms served as dispensary and consulting space, and the family lived further in. Before the separate Western-style clinic went up in 1921, this was how a herbal doctor worked, and the floor plan still records it.

What to Look For at the Kitamuro Main House

A roof in two tiers

The roof is hip-and-gable (Irimoya-zukuri) in the heavy tile style known as Hongawarabuki, with a lower lean-to roof (Geya) running around all four sides. Under the main roof a second, lower skirt of tiles wraps the building, so from the south you see two layers of tile one above the other. Toward the west end of the front, a porch with its own hip-and-gable roof projects forward. The alternating rows of round and flat tiles are easy to tell apart from the simpler pan-tiled roofs elsewhere in the compound.

Upper windows with mokkō frames

The upper floor is pierced with mushiko-mado, small slatted windows set into the plaster, and their frames are shaped in the mokkō outline, a four-lobed flower form with its corners cut inward, often seen in family crests and fittings. The fine slats and curved frames along the low upper wall are easier to read from a few steps back.

A front and back plan

Inside, the dispensary, a consulting room and a formal reception room with an alcove line the front, and the living quarters lie behind. Putting the rooms for mixing medicine, seeing patients and receiving guests along the south front lets callers finish their business without entering the family's private space. In July 2023 specialists surveyed the underfloor structure of the house.

Seeing the Former Kitamuro Hospital Main House

The Former Kitamuro Hospital Main House is the first building you face after passing through the gap in the earthen wall on the south side. The ends of the wall turn inward and lead toward the entrance, so the porch and the two tiers of roof are what you see first.

The museum's website does not say how much of the main house interior is included in tours. When you book with the Former Kitamuro Hospital Medical Museum, mention that you would like to see the dispensary or reception rooms and ask. Booking and transport details are on the Former Kitamuro Hospital page.