Ichiki Ryokan Main Building

An Edo-Period Town House on the Temple Road

Ichiki Ryokan Main Building (一木旅館本館, Ichiki Ryokan Honkan) is a late Edo-period machiya town house facing south onto the pilgrims' road to Chōhōji temple in Kami, Shimotsu-cho, Kainan City, Wakayama Prefecture; remodeled in the early Shōwa era, it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on June 29, 2022. It is the oldest of the five registered structures at Ichiki Ryokan, and the only one that presents a street front to the road.

The building is a single-storey timber house under a gabled kirizuma-zukuri roof, entered on the long side in the hirairi manner, and covered in hongawarabuki, the heavier tiling that alternates rounded and flat tiles. It covers 126 square metres. Its eaves are kept low, ending not far above the heads of people walking past.

A Merchant's Plan Adapted for Guests

The Agency for Cultural Affairs' description shows a classic town-house layout. A broad earthen-floored passage runs the full depth of the house along its east side, with a single row of rooms beside it. This is the standard plan of a shop-house that grows backward from the street, the passage doing duty as the corridor.

On top of that frame sit the rooms of an inn. A corridor leads toward the entrance and toward a rear wing set at right angles, known as a tsunoya; there are two tatami rooms once used as waiting rooms; and at the back, in the tsunoya, a suite of reception rooms with a formal tokonoma alcove. The most formal space is placed as far from the street as possible.

The early Shōwa remodeling is best read alongside the rest of the compound. Around 1937 the Entrance Building and the New Building went up, and the Ichiki Ryokan Main Building became the eastern end of a larger complex, joined to the Entrance Building by a corridor. The earthen passage and row of rooms survived, while the new corridor and rear rooms stitched the old house into the inn's circulation.

The registration criterion is contribution to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency notes that the building preserves the historic character of the temple road.

What to Look For

The first thing you notice is the long, low line of the eaves running parallel to the road. The single-storey profile of Ichiki Ryokan Main Building is itself the clearest sign of its age.

Look at the roof tiles as well. The Main Building is the only structure at Ichiki Ryokan roofed in hongawarabuki; the Shōwa-era Old Building, New Building and Entrance Building use the lighter wave-profile sangawara-buki tiling. Seen from the road, the vertical ribs of rounded tiles give the Main Building a deeper, more shadowed texture than anything behind it.

If you get inside, stand in the earthen passage on the east side and look toward the back. The Agency's own database includes a photograph of this passage, and it is where the house's origins as a merchant home are easiest to feel.

Seeing Ichiki Ryokan Main Building

The exterior of Ichiki Ryokan Main Building can be viewed from the road, and because it stands right at the street edge it is the easiest of the five structures to see. The front faces south, so for most of the day the eaves cast a crisp shadow and the tile ribs read clearly.

The interior is open only to people dining at Ichiki Ryokan, which now operates as a restaurant. Which rooms you are given depends on the booking, so if you want to see the earthen passage or the rear reception rooms, ask when you reserve. Check with the staff before taking photographs indoors.