Hiraoka Family Residence Kitchen

About the Hiraoka Family Residence Kitchen

The Hiraoka Family Residence Kitchen (平岡家住宅台所, Hiraoka-ke Jūtaku Daidokoro) is a kitchen building in Osato, Kaiyo-cho, Kaifu-gun, Tokushima Prefecture, built in the early Showa era (1926 to 1945) and entered on Japan's register of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2022. It is a one-story wooden building of 25 square meters attached to the back, or north side, of the Hiraoka Family Residence Main House.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs registered the Hiraoka Family Residence Kitchen for its contribution to the historic landscape, as one of the buildings that make up a complete farm homestead. In the Agency's words it is a so-called kamaya, a cooking shed fitted with a well pump.

A Roof With Two Different Ends

The Hiraoka Family Residence Kitchen is a single-story building entered from its long side (Hirairi), and the two ends of its roof are finished differently. The east end is hipped-and-gabled (Irimoya-zukuri); the west end is a plain gable (Kirizuma-zukuri). The building reads differently depending on which end you see.

The walls are clad in horizontal weatherboarding (Shitami-itabari), with only the strip just under the eaves finished in white lime plaster (Shikkui), so a single pale band runs along the top of the boarded walls.

Half Boards, Half Earth Floor

Inside, the building is split north to south. The southern half, nearer the main house, has a raised board floor and a ceiling of boards laid on thin battens (Saobuchi-tenjō). The northern half was originally an earth floor (Doma) and holds a well pump.

The Agency calls this northern part a kamaya, the usual name in farmhouses for the earth-floored space where the cooking stoves stood. At the Hiraoka Family Residence Kitchen, that is the part with the well pump.

The national database publishes a view of the building from the north and an interior photograph. It is a small building, but its plan shows clearly how a farm kitchen combined a wet working area with a raised room.

Visiting the Hiraoka Family Residence Kitchen

There is no public opening of the Hiraoka Family Residence Kitchen, and the interior cannot be visited. It stands behind the main house on the north side, so expect it to be almost invisible from the street in front of the estate.

No guidance on photography is published. The grounds are also used for community activities, so please do not enter them. The route from Awa-Kainan Station is given on the Hiraoka Family Residence page.