Ozaki Rintaro Family Residence Reception Wing

What the Ozaki Rintaro Family Residence Reception Wing is

The Ozaki Rintaro Family Residence Reception Wing (尾崎林太郎家住宅座敷, Ozaki Rintarō-ke Jūtaku Zashiki) is a mid-Edo-period wing of formal reception rooms in Kuroe, Kainan City, Wakayama Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on October 12, 2001. It sits behind the main house on the west side and is the oldest of the four registered buildings on the Ozaki property.

Its roof is hip-and-gable and pantiled, with deep Tsuchibisashi eaves carried round the north and west sides, and the building area is 128 square meters. The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates the formal rooms to around the mid-Edo period, which it gives as 1661 to 1750, with alterations in the middle of the Taisho era (1912 to 1925). The Kishu Lacquerware Cooperative likewise describes the Ozaki Zashiki as a mid-Edo building.

The sources disagree on the number of floors. The Agency's written description calls it single-storey, while the structure field of the same database lists it as 2 storeys. The published material does not settle the question.

Why the reception wing was registered

The Ozaki Rintaro Family Residence Reception Wing was registered as a building that has become a model of its type. The Agency praises its formal rooms, fitted with an alcove, shelves and a built-in writing desk, for their orderly design in the sukiya manner, and the delicacy of details such as the board transoms.

The second point is how the old wing was handled when the property was rebuilt in the mid-Taisho era. Rather than demolishing it, the family joined it skilfully to the plan of the new main house and kept using it. That join is part of what makes the building worth looking at.

Alcove, shelves, writing desk and transoms

The heart of the Ozaki Rintaro Family Residence Reception Wing is the set of fittings in the main room: a Tokonoma alcove, shelves and a Tsukeshoin writing desk. An interior photograph on Cultural Heritage Online shows a hanging scroll in the alcove with the desk to its right behind shoji screens, and a pierced wooden panel above. The board transoms the Agency mentions are presumably Ranma of this kind.

The sukiya manner keeps the formality of the shoin reception room but lightens it with slender members and a careful choice of materials. Here the standard trio of alcove, shelves and desk is retained, and the effort goes into the fine work of the transoms.

Outside, the eaves on the north and west are the thing to notice. A tsuchibisashi is an eave carried well out on its own posts, sheltering the ground beneath, and here it links the rooms with the garden. An exterior photograph on Cultural Heritage Online shows the wing's deep eaves beyond the garden shrubs.

Seeing the Ozaki Rintaro Family Residence Reception Wing

No information on interior visits to the Ozaki Rintaro Family Residence Reception Wing could be found. It lies at the back of the property, behind the main house, and is probably hidden from the road on the east by the main house and storehouses, though this has not been confirmed.

Please stay off the grounds. Directions are on the Ozaki Rintaro Family Residence page.