Fujita Family Residence Rear Barn and Annex

Half Barn, Half Guest Wing

The Fujita Family Residence Rear Barn and Annex (藤田家住宅裏納屋兼離れ, Fujita-ke Jūtaku Ura-naya ken Hanare) is a building of around 1923 in Shinkirai, Kitajima Town, Tokushima Prefecture, that combines a farm barn and a detached living wing under one registration; it was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2016.

It stands behind the main house in the northwest corner of the plot. Wooden, 2 storeys with a single-storey section, tiled, it has a building area of 122 square metres, second only to the main house.

The name says it all: the west half is a barn for tools and harvest, the east half a hanare, a separate wing for relaxing and receiving guests. Two spaces with entirely different purposes stand back to back, and that contrast is what makes the building interesting.

Why It Was Registered

The building received registration number 36-0149 in the 85th round of national registrations, dated 2016/11/29, under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs singles out the care given to the annex's interior. Farm outbuildings tend to be purely practical, but here the eastern half was fitted out as proper reception rooms, linked to the main house by a covered passage. It speaks to the comfort a well-off rural household of the Taisho period expected of its home.

What to Look For

The barn

The barn half is a gabled two-storey block clad in shitami-itabari, overlapping horizontal boards that shed rain well and are a common finish on farm buildings.

The annex

The annex is a single-storey wing under a hip-and-gable irimoya roof, joined to the main house by a roofed corridor. An uchien, an indoor veranda, wraps its east and south sides, enclosing a six-mat room and an eight-mat zashiki reception room. From outside, the roofline changes height and shape where barn meets annex.

Fan rafters in polished logs

The detail to look for is the veranda ceiling. Polished, debarked logs are set as ōgidaruki, rafters fanned out like the ribs of a folding fan, and spaced well apart. Fan rafters are usually associated with the eaves of Buddhist temples; using them lightly, in natural logs, on the ceiling of a farmhouse veranda has the playful feel of sukiya tea-house design. It shows that the annex of the Fujita Family Residence Rear Barn and Annex was meant to be looked at, not just slept in.

Visiting

The building is part of a private home and its interior is not open; as of October 2026 we found no announcement of public visits. Sitting behind the main house in the northwest corner, it is not readily visible from outside the property.

Photographs supplied by the Kitajima Town Board of Education are available in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database.