Obara-Ya Harada Shoten New Tatami Room

One Reception Room, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property since 1999

Obara-Ya Harada Shoten New Tatami Room (小原屋原田商店新座敷, Obaraya Harada Shoten Shinzashiki) stands at 1714 Kajikazawa, Fujikawa Town, Minamikoma District, Yamanashi Prefecture, a Meiji-period building entered on the register of tangible cultural properties on 7 June 1999. It is a registered property rather than a designated one.

The quantity is one building.

The structure field gives earthen construction, two-storeyed, tiled, with a floor area of 31 square metres. The date field reads Meiji and the year field 1900.

The Structure Field and the Commentary Disagree on Storeys

Within one record, the height of the building is given two ways.

The structure field says earthen and two-storeyed.

The Agency's commentary, on the other hand, calls it a single-storeyed building set at right angles to the document storehouse.

Two storeys in the field, one in the commentary. Which is the building as it stands cannot be settled from this record alone.

For the oil storehouse on the same grounds, the field says two storeys and the commentary says only one room has an upper floor: a difference of degree.

Here field and commentary contradict each other outright. As at the Hara residence, where the period in the classification and the date field disagree, the difficulty lies in the record itself.

Made to Look Like the Stores Around It

A room for receiving guests takes the outward look of a storehouse.

The Agency records that, though small, its exterior was made in earthen construction to match its surroundings.

Oil, salt and document stores stand around it. A building for guests takes on the look of the row of stores.

Rokuzankan, a museum, puts one in mind of a church: one kind of building recalling another.

Here a building matches its neighbours. One of another use is made not to stand out from the row.

Its exterior is plain overall, the record adds.

Called a Reception Room, Now a Canteen

The name and the present use have come apart.

The Agency records that the interior was lately changed to an earthen floor and is used as a canteen for the staff.

A reception room of this kind is matted and receives guests. Its floor has been turned to earth, and it now feeds those who work there.

At the Soka museum, the brackets in the name hold the former use; at the former Yamanaka main house, the present name.

Here only the original name remains, with no brackets. The use that gave the name is no longer followed.

The record closes that it is a valuable survival as one element of a merchant's house. It is valued not alone but as a part of the whole.

Visiting

The building stands at 1714 Kajikazawa, Fujikawa Town, Minamikoma District, Yamanashi Prefecture.

At 31 square metres it is the smallest of the 5 buildings on the grounds, about a fifth of the oil storehouse at 152 square metres.

Its date, 1900, makes it the newest of the 5; the other 4 are all given as Edo.

The shop, oil, salt and document storehouses on the same grounds were registered on the same day.

No owner is recorded, and opening and terms follow the owner's arrangements. Check before travelling.