Fifty-one Square Metres in Higashi-Yukigaya
My House (私の家, Watashi no Ie), the architect Seike Kiyoshi's own residence, stands in Higashi-Yukigaya 3-chōme, Ōta City, Tokyo, was completed in 1954, and was entered on the national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 27 October 2017. It is a single-storey reinforced-concrete building of 51 square metres with a basement, measuring roughly five metres by ten.
Those dimensions were not chosen for elegance. They fit inside the conditions attached to a loan from the Government Housing Loan Corporation, the body that financed a great deal of Japanese housing in the years after the war. Seike, then an assistant professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, was working within the same constraints as anyone else building a family home in 1954. What he produced from them has been studied ever since.
The house went up in the back garden of his parents' property. Early drawings carry the label House for an Old Professor, which suggests it was first conceived for his father Seike Tadashi, a mechanical engineer. In the end the architect moved in with his own family, four of them at first and eventually six. Two more houses by Seike were later built on the same land for other members of the family, so the plot now holds a small private survey of his domestic work.
A Model of Form
Japan's register of Tangible Cultural Properties works through a set of criteria, and the one applied here is worth pausing on. Most registered houses qualify because they contribute to the historical character of the landscape. My House was registered under a different heading: as a work held up as a standard for design. The distinction says something. The building is not on the register because it is old or picturesque, but because postwar Japanese architects learned from it.
The Agency for Cultural Affairs summary is unusually specific about how it works. Within a tightly limited floor area, the finished floor sits just fifteen centimetres above the ground, and the household lives in a single room that draws the width of the garden into itself. Inside, a flat slab is carried on a Havemeyer truss, and furniture-like devices divide the space loosely rather than firmly. The record calls it an outstanding example among the small postwar houses.
Each of those clauses describes a decision. Fifteen centimetres is far below the raised timber floor of a traditional Japanese house, which typically sits high enough to need a step and a threshold. Dropping it flattens the break between inside and out. The stone paving of the central room, cut andesite of the type quarried in Nagano and known as teppeiseki, continues into the garden, and hot-water heating runs beneath it. Marble marks the small area that functions as an entrance, since there is no entrance hall in the conventional sense.
The Havemeyer truss is the ceiling. Rather than thickening the slab or dropping beams into the room, Seike used a lattice welded up from eighteen-millimetre steel rod, light enough to read as pattern rather than structure. The idea is generally traced to the Eames House in California. It was painted a reddish brown when new and is now an off-white, which changes the character of the room considerably.
As for the partitions, there are almost none. A single curtain screens the sleeping area. Everything else is done with cabinets, shelves and a desk, some of them apparently floating clear of the floor. The best-known device is the mobile tatami platform, a low tatami-topped stand on casters that can be pushed where it is wanted, and taken out to the garden when the weather allows, though the fifteen-centimetre step means it has to be lifted over. Not every consequence of an idea is convenient.
Details and Access
Look for the glass block. In the sleeping area part of the wall is built of it, and a circular block set into the floor there lets light down into the basement room below. The stair hall retains the only light fitting in the house that survives from 1954. Its large window was designed to sink into the parapet by a handle operated from the basement, a mechanism no longer used after the cable failed more than once.
A 1977 extension and alteration accounts for the differences a visitor may notice between the house today and the published photographs of the 1950s. A bathtub, a separate lavatory and a washing area were added at that point. The original arrangement had a compact shower and lavatory, and famously no door on the lavatory at all.
My House is privately owned and lived in, and it is not a museum. Since September 2023 the owners have permitted trial openings organised by the friends' association, with tours led by architecture students of the Institute of Science Tokyo, the university formed from the merger that absorbed the Tokyo Institute of Technology where Seike taught. Visits run roughly once a month, are free, require advance booking, and have been offered to architecture professionals and architecture students rather than to the general public. Anyone hoping to attend should check the official site for the current conditions, since a trial arrangement can change. Photography inside has been permitted, but publishing those images to the web or to social media has not, and the neighbouring Seike houses are not to be photographed at all.
Ishikawadai station on the Tōkyū Ikegami Line is the closest, about nine minutes on foot through quiet residential streets. Seike's work can be followed elsewhere in Tokyo: the House for Dr. Mori of 1951 in Honkomagome, Bunkyō City, is also a registered Tangible Cultural Property, and the House for Assistant Professor Saitō of 1952 is the building that reportedly so impressed Walter Gropius on a visit to Japan that he took Seike home with him.
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Q&A
- Can the public visit My House, Seike Kiyoshi's residence?
- Only under limited conditions. Trial openings began in September 2023, with free guided visits about once a month led by architecture students of the Institute of Science Tokyo, by advance reservation. They have been offered to architecture professionals and architecture students rather than to general visitors. Check the official site run by the friends' association for current terms.
- Why is My House only 51 square metres?
- The five-by-ten-metre footprint fits within the conditions for a loan from the Government Housing Loan Corporation, which financed much postwar Japanese housing. Seike worked inside the ordinary constraints of 1954 and used a single undivided room, a low floor and movable furniture to make the space feel larger than the figure suggests.
- What is the Havemeyer truss in My House?
- It is the lattice of welded eighteen-millimetre steel rod that supports the flat ceiling slab. Keeping the structure thin left the single room unobstructed by beams. Its origin is usually traced to the Eames House in California. Originally reddish brown, it is now painted off-white.
- Can I photograph My House, and how do I get there?
- It sits in Higashi-Yukigaya 3-chōme, Ōta City, about nine minutes on foot from Ishikawadai station on the Tōkyū Ikegami Line. Photography inside has been allowed on tours, but posting those images online has been prohibited, and the two neighbouring Seike houses on the same land may not be photographed. Confirm the rules when booking.
- Is My House a National Treasure or an Important Cultural Property?
- Neither. It is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, a lighter category introduced in 1996 for buildings that remain in use. It was registered on 27 October 2017 under the criterion for works serving as a standard for design, which is applied less often than the landscape criterion used for most registered houses.
Basic Information
| Name | My House, residence of Seike Kiyoshi (私の家（清家清自邸）) |
|---|---|
| Location | Higashi-Yukigaya 3-chōme 519, Ōta City, Tokyo |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure), registration number 13-382, 88th registration round; criterion: a standard for design |
| Year Designated | 27 October 2017 (Heisei 29) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Reinforced concrete, single storey with basement, metal-sheet roof, building area 51 m²; built 1954, extended and altered 1977 |
| Owner | Private (not published in the national database) |
| Public Access | Private residence. Limited guided visits by advance reservation, offered to architecture professionals and students |
References
- National Database of Designated Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs — My House (Seike Kiyoshi Residence)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00011885
- Cultural Heritage Online — My House (Seike Kiyoshi Residence)
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/256755
- SEIKE HOUSE — official site of the My House friends' association
- https://sites.google.com/view/seikehouse/home
- Agency for Cultural Affairs — Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (Structures)
- https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkazai/shokai/yukei_kenzobutsu/toroku_yukei.html
Last verified: 2026.08.23