Hirano Family Residence Western-Style House

White Tiles and Half-Timbering

The Hirano Family Residence Western-Style House (平野家住宅洋館, Hirano-ke Jūtaku Yōkan) is a two-storey timber building in the Western manner, built in 1922 in Nishikata, Bunkyo City, Tokyo, and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 2 September 1998. It has a slate roof and a modest footprint of 29 square metres.

Within the Hirano Family Residence designed by Yasuoka Katsuya, this is the building on your right as you pass through the gate. The gate's northern wing wall is butted against the outer wall of the Hirano Family Residence Western-Style House, so the two read as one continuous front.

Why It Was Listed: A Door and Stair of Its Own

The walls are faced in white tile, with only the rear portions finished in so-called German wall, a rough-textured render. Exposed posts and beams give it a half-timbered look, a clear contrast with the tiled roofs of the Japanese-style main house.

What the Agency for Cultural Affairs singled out is that the Hirano Family Residence Western-Style House has its own entrance and stair hall, separate from the main entrance. Visitors could come and go without passing through the family's rooms, which made the block largely self-contained. Its joinery and light fittings also survive well, and the Agency considers it a telling example of Yasuoka's approach to houses. It was registered under the criterion for buildings that set a standard of design.

What to Look For: An Office and Reception Wing

According to the historian Fujimori Terunobu, the first owner, the publisher Asada Komanosuke, used the Hirano Family Residence Western-Style House as an office and a room for receiving guests. A separate door for business and visitors, kept apart from the family's Japanese rooms, fits that use exactly.

Sources name the style differently. The Agency calls it half-timber; Fujimori calls it Secession. He also argues that the tall glass panes on the upper floor of the main house were chosen to echo this building, so the small Western block may have shaped the joinery of the larger house next to it.

If you are looking from the lane, watch how the flat white tile plays against the lines of the timber frame. The brick gatepost right beside it makes the difference in materials even sharper.

Visiting

The Hirano Family Residence Western-Style House is part of a private home and its interior is not open. Because it stands right beside the gate, part of its exterior can be seen from the lane.

The grounds are closed, so view it from the street only and avoid pointing cameras through the windows or at residents. Directions are on the Hirano Family Residence page.