Ichiki Ryokan New Building

An Early Shōwa Guest Wing Facing the River

Ichiki Ryokan New Building (一木旅館新館, Ichiki Ryokan Shinkan) is an early Shōwa-period 2-storey timber guest wing at the rear of Ichiki Ryokan in Kami, Shimotsu-cho, Kainan City, Wakayama Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on June 29, 2022. The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it simply to the early Shōwa era, while the Wakayama Prefectural Board of Education places it around 1937, together with the Entrance Building and the gate and wall.

It has an irimoya-zukuri hip-and-gable roof in sangawara-buki tile and a building area of 126 square metres. A covered bridge links it to the north side of the Entrance Building, putting it at the deepest point of the compound, farthest from the pilgrims' road. The Miya River runs directly behind it.

Five Self-Contained Rooms

What sets Ichiki Ryokan New Building apart is how its rooms are assembled. According to the Agency, each guest room has four parts: a small entry called a yoritsuki, an anteroom, a main room with a formal tokonoma alcove, and a wide veranda corridor. Guests settle their footwear in the yoritsuki, pass through the anteroom into the main room, and look out from the veranda beyond. Each room is a miniature of the full sequence from front door to inner parlor.

There are 5 of these rooms: 3 on the ground floor and 2 upstairs. The Old Building next door is a suite of connecting rooms that opens into a banquet hall; the New Building is a wing of private rooms, each closed off from the next. The plans show two guest wings of the same inn built for different kinds of use.

The design is a quiet sukiya style. The Agency describes it as a deliberate contrast to the timber-proud Old Building. The registration criterion is contribution to the historic landscape of the country.

Verandas over the Miya River

Every veranda in Ichiki Ryokan New Building faces the Miya River at the back of the lot, and the Agency singles out this outlook as a particular charm. Where the Main Building and the Old Building turn toward the pilgrims' road, the New Building turns its back on it and opens to the water.

If you are shown into one of its rooms, let your eye travel from the alcove across the veranda to the river. The depth of the room, anteroom to main room to veranda, is arranged so that it becomes the distance to the view.

To compare it with the Old Building, look at how the alcove post and ceiling timbers are chosen. The Old Building puts unusual wood forward; the New Building keeps the materials quiet and lets proportion and the outlook do the work.

Seeing Ichiki Ryokan New Building

Ichiki Ryokan New Building stands at the very back of the compound and cannot be seen from the pilgrims' road. Both the exterior and the rooms can be seen only when dining at Ichiki Ryokan, which now operates as a restaurant.

Which rooms are used depends on party size and booking. If you want to see the New Building's rooms or the river view from its verandas, ask when you reserve. Check with the staff before taking photographs indoors.