Hiraoka Family Residence Barn

About the Hiraoka Family Residence Barn

The Hiraoka Family Residence Barn (平岡家住宅納屋, Hiraoka-ke Jūtaku Naya) is a combined barn and living block in Osato, Kaiyo-cho, Kaifu-gun, Tokushima Prefecture, built in 1954 and entered on Japan's register of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2022. The two-story wooden building covers 70 square meters and stands east of the Hiraoka Family Residence Main House, facing west toward it.

It is the newest of the five registered structures at the Hiraoka Family Residence, 82 years younger than the 1872 main house. The Agency for Cultural Affairs registered the Hiraoka Family Residence Barn for its contribution to the historic landscape, noting that it shows how a farming household worked and lived.

Work and Storage on the Ground Floor

The Hiraoka Family Residence Barn has a gabled roof (Kirizuma-zukuri) with its entrance at the gable end (Tsumairi), a pantiled roof (Sangawara-buki) and weatherboarded walls (Shitami-itabari). On the north side a wing projects at right angles (Tsunoya).

The ground floor holds the barn proper and a storeroom, including a store for potatoes (imogura). A deep lean-to roof over the front sheltered an outdoor work area, where crops could be sorted and tools mended even in the rain.

The north wing served as a store and a cattle shed. The cattle shed is a reminder that cattle were still part of farm life when the barn was built.

A Formal Room Upstairs

The upper floor of the Hiraoka Family Residence Barn is not the hayloft you might expect. It is a suite of connected reception-style rooms (Zashiki) with a Tokonoma alcove, laid out as living quarters. The national database includes a photograph of the 6-mat room upstairs.

Cattle and potatoes below, a sheltered work yard in front, and tatami rooms with an alcove above: work, storage and living stacked into one building give a concrete picture of farm life in the years just after the Second World War.

Visiting the Hiraoka Family Residence Barn

There is no public opening of the Hiraoka Family Residence Barn, and the interior cannot be visited. Because it faces west toward the main house, its deep front canopy looks into the estate rather than out to the street, and little of it can be seen from outside.

No guidance on photography is published. Please stay off the grounds. The nearest station and how to find the estate are covered on the Hiraoka Family Residence page.