Kawaguchi Family Residence Annex

About the Kawaguchi Family Residence Annex

The Kawaguchi Family Residence Annex (川口家住宅離れ, Kawaguchi-ke Jūtaku Hanare) is a two-storey timber outbuilding in the northeast corner of the Kawaguchi estate in Nishiniunozu, Aridagawa Town, Wakayama Prefecture, built in the early Taisho era (1912 to 1918) and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2018.

The Kawaguchi Family Residence Annex faces south and measures 3.5 ken by 2 ken (a ken is about 1.8 m), with a building area of 31 m². It has a hipped roof of round-edged pantiles, and a lean-to Geya runs along its south front.

A Retirement Wing, and a Painter in Wartime

Hanare simply means a detached building. According to Wakayama Prefecture, the Kawaguchi Family Residence Annex worked as a kind of retirement quarters supporting the main house; it was not a guest pavilion for entertaining visitors.

During the Second World War it had a more unusual occupant. Kawaguchi Kigai, a relative of the family and one of the leading Western-style painters from Wakayama, left Tokyo and lived on its upper floor. Kigai was born in 1892 in what is now Aridagawa, went to Tokyo at nineteen to study painting, and spent about ten years in France from the age of twenty-seven, absorbing the new movements in European art. He died in 1966.

The Kawaguchi Family Residence Annex was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property for its contribution to the historic landscape. The national database notes that it stands on a corner plot facing the old road and gives the estate its edge.

Western Outside, Japanese Within

The striking thing about the Kawaguchi Family Residence Annex is the contrast between its skin and its rooms. Three sides, every face except the south front, are clad in clapboard painted white; the prefecture describes it as Nankin shitami, overlapping horizontal boards. The upper floor on the north side has sash windows that slide up and down, a detail that makes the building look almost like a small Western villa from the road.

Inside, though, it is entirely Japanese. The east room upstairs is a Zashiki with a Tokonoma alcove, and this upper floor is where Kigai spent the war.

Only the south front keeps the Japanese lean-to; the other three faces were given the Western finish, so the building looks quite different depending on which side you see it from.

Seeing the Kawaguchi Family Residence Annex

The Kawaguchi Family Residence Annex is privately owned and has no public opening days. The estate is leased to a social welfare corporation for employment support, and we found no arrangement for seeing the upstairs room.

Because the Kawaguchi Family Residence Annex stands on the corner by the road, it is, going by the layout, one of the easiest buildings to see from outside. Look for the white clapboard and the sash windows on the upper north wall. Along the street to the east, the earthen wall runs south from the annex to the barn. Please stay on the road and photograph from there. Directions are on the Kawaguchi Family Residence page.