Namiki House

The Postwar Apartment Where Tezuka Osamu Lived

The Namiki House (並木ハウス, Namiki Hausu) is a two-storey timber rental apartment building completed in 1953 in Zoshigaya, Toshima City, Tokyo, which in 2018 was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs records a tiled roof and a building area of 106 square metres, with renovation in 2009.

Toshima City notes that the manga artist Tezuka Osamu moved here from the Tokiwa-so apartments in 1955 and lived here for three and a half years until building his own house in Hatsudai in 1957.

The Building

The Agency describes it standing, facing west, at the end of a lane off the approach to Zoshigaya Kishimojin temple. It is two storeys high, with gabled roofs meeting in a T.

Stairs and shared rooms are grouped on the north, with a broad central corridor and rooms of various sizes on three sides. Some rooms have a tokonoma alcove; the Agency calls it a high-quality timber rental building with handsome handrails.

Toshima City explains that it is a typical postwar rental apartment with shared toilets and no baths, built in large numbers during the housing shortage. Its patterned glass sash windows and iron handrails are standard, but its room types, including rooms with alcoves, and generous shared spaces make it an unusually high-quality example.

What to Look For

Toshima City notes that Tezuka's serials from his Tokiwa-so and Namiki House years include Jungle Emperor, Astro Boy and Princess Knight. Panels about the building are displayed in the upstairs gallery of the Zoshigaya information centre.

The city observes that buildings with the typical specification of postwar apartments have become rare. The timber apartment at the end of its lane is itself a record of how Tokyo lived after the war.

Visiting the Namiki House

The Namiki House is still used as rental housing, so the interior cannot be visited. Please respect residents' privacy when viewing the exterior.

Toshima City gives the nearest stations as Zoshigaya on the Tokyo Metro Fukutoshin Line (about 2 minutes from exit 1) and Kishibojin-mae on the Toden Arakawa Line. Enquiries about the cultural property: Toshima City cultural affairs section, 03-3981-1190.