Ichiki Ryokan Old Building

A Meiji Guest Wing, Moved into Place

Ichiki Ryokan Old Building (一木旅館旧館, Ichiki Ryokan Kyūkan) is a 2-storey timber guest wing from the late Meiji period at Ichiki Ryokan in Kami, Shimotsu-cho, Kainan City, Wakayama Prefecture; it was moved to the site in 1937 and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on June 29, 2022. Despite the name, it is not the oldest building here: it comes second, after the late Edo Main Building.

It has a hip-and-gable irimoya-zukuri roof in sangawara-buki tile and a building area of 89 square metres. It stands west of the Main Building, linked to it through the Entrance Building, and a wall separates it from the pilgrims' road, over which its upper floor looks out onto the street.

Neither the Agency for Cultural Affairs nor the Wakayama Prefectural Board of Education records where the building stood before the move. What can be confirmed is that a late Meiji building from elsewhere was brought here as part of the 1937 expansion.

Showpiece Timber in a Sukiya Frame

The ground floor of Ichiki Ryokan Old Building holds a suite of four tatami rooms of varying size. With the sliding partitions removed they become a single banquet hall, which suits a dining inn. Upstairs there is a six-mat room with a formal alcove and a six-mat anteroom.

The Agency describes the design as sukiya in style with a rather strong taste for prized timber. The phrase describes a building that keeps the lightness of sukiya design but chooses its most visible members, beginning with the tokobashira alcove post, for unusual grain or shape and puts them on display. The same note calls it a deliberate contrast to the restrained New Building.

The registration criterion is contribution to the historic landscape of the country. Although it was relocated, the building's upper floor, visible over the wall, has become part of the streetscape of the temple road.

What to Look For

From the road, look at the irimoya roof and the row of upper-floor openings rising above the wall. Where the single-storey Main Building keeps its eaves low, Ichiki Ryokan Old Building stacks its roof a level higher and gives the western end of the compound its height.

Inside, the focus is the alcove area of the ground-floor suite. The Agency's database includes a photograph of a ground-floor room named 萬花, "ten thousand flowers." Naming each room was common practice at inns that hosted many banquets.

If you have the chance, compare it with the New Building. Both are 2-storey irimoya structures with sangawara tile, yet the Old Building shows off its timber while the New Building holds back. Together the two guest wings of Ichiki Ryokan span the range of what sukiya design could be.

Seeing Ichiki Ryokan Old Building

The upper floor of Ichiki Ryokan Old Building is visible from the pilgrims' road above the wall. The ground floor is screened by the wall, so the building cannot be seen whole from outside.

The interior is open only to people dining at Ichiki Ryokan, which now operates as a restaurant. Whether the Old Building's rooms are used depends on party size and booking, so ask when you reserve if you want to see them. Check with the staff before taking photographs indoors.