Nabeshima Mansion

 

The Nabeshima Mansion was a big property around which is the Kojirokuji Samurai District in Kumini on the coast of the Shimbara Peninsula.

It has one of the biggest Nagayamon I have ever seen. In essence a long gatehouse, they were often where guards and servants of big mansions lived.

The cluster of different connected buildings were built at different times between the Edo Period and the early twentieth century.

Looking at an old map shows that this area was part of three, small pieces of "territory" controlled by the Nabeshima domain, but geographically within the Shimbara Peninsula, controlled by Shimbara Domain, so the surrounding little samurai district and the Nabeshima mansion were kind of an outpost.

Maps of Japan at the time show all kinds of complicated "islands" of territories geographically within domains, but I have no idea how this came about in this instance.

When I visited the house was closed to the public for renovations, but I believe it is now open.

However, the property has some fine gardens and grounds including a cherry tree that brings visitors to photograph its early blossoms. I will cover the garden next...

The previous post was on the Preservation District the mansion is part of.

Disappeared Japan Yamane Residence Hamada

 

In October 2009 the Russian sail training ship Nadehzda was making a courtesy visit to Hamada Port and was open to the public

Walking back along the waterfront road I stopped to take some photos of a couple of empty, traditional buildings.

An old gentleman in the garden next door asked me why I why taking photos of the abandoned buildings and I explained I enjoyed the ratios and composition of traditional architecture.

He asked if I would like to see inside, and we said yes, presuming he meant the empty buildings, but he took us into his home.

It was a very large, traditional house filled with typical architectural features and family heirlooms. Particularly impressive were the two, large kamidana.

In the courtyard with two large, stone sinks, Yoko remarked that it looked like a sake brewery, and the owner remarked that it used to be a soy brewery, the business that had made the family fortune. I am guessing the adjacent empty buildings were part of that business.

While walking through the area 2 years ago I noticed that many of the older houses in the area were gone, and the house we had been allowed to explore has been replaced with a large, modern two-storey affair.

The previous post in this series on Disappeared Japan was on the unusual sex museum in Ureshino.

Tomogaura Tomokan

 

Tomokan is the name given to a couple of refurbished buildings in the tiny fishing village of Tomogaura, part of the World Heritage Sites of the Iwami Ginzan Silver Mines as it was one of the ports that serviced the mines.

It is thought they were originally built in the early to mid 19th century. The outbuilding is open all year round and has exhibitions connected to the port and the route to the mine.

The main house is only open from March through November. Tomokan is unmanned and free to enter.

If you are in the area then it is a good opportunity to look around a small, traditional home. My house was built about a hundred years later but used a similar construction . What is unusual is that both buildings are completely clad in sheets of cedar bark.

I earlier posted on the old harbour itself.

Umeda Architecture Snapshots

 

The high-rise buildings of Umeda in downtown Osaka may be quite familiar to many visitors, but because I live deep in the countryside and rarely visit cities the sights are quite unfamiliar Japan to me and very fascinating.

The cluster of seven temples that comprise the start of the Kinki Fudo Myo Pilgrimage are all located in central Osaka and after visiting the 7th, Settsu Kokubunji, in the afternoon of my second day walking, it was now time to head West towards Kobe where temple 8 lay.

I had a hotel room booked for the night in Nishinomiya so I had no time to explore or engage in any kind of photographic study of the architecture, just snapshots as I passed by.

This is the Umekita Ship Hall, a commercial property on the northside of JR Osaka Station. It was designed by Nikken Sekkei

The unique Umeda Sky Building, designed by Hiroshi Hara, seen from a distance.

A replica of a medieval Belgian church on the 8th floor of the Hotel Monterey Osaka.

The previous post in this series on the Kinki Fudo Myo Pilgrimage was Settsu Kokubunji Temple.

Dejima

 

A scale model, made in 1976, showing how Dejima looked around 1820, is on display at the reconstructed island "home" of the Dutch traders in Nagasaki during the Edo Period.

The Dutch, the only Europeans allowed to trade, lived here from 1641 to 1859 after being moved here from nearby Hirado. The Portuguese were on Dejima for a few years prior to that before they were all expelled from Japan.

The only Japanese people allowed into the compund were government officials and prostitutes.

Some of the buildings only date back as far as the Meiji Period, after Japan "opened" and a larger foreign presence was established. This was the International Club, built in 1903, by foreign residents as a social meeting place.

The first protestant seminary was established here in 1878.

Restoration and rebuilding continues and over time more interiors will be finished and opened to visitors.

As well as the "foreign" buildings, there are some purely Japanese structures where government officials conductd business.

Gradually more restoration work is bring done on the waterways around Dejima to bring it back to its historical state.

The previous post in this series exploring Nagasaki was the nearby  Nagasaki Prefectural Museum of Art

Nagasaki Prefectural Museum of Art

 

The Nagasaki Prefectural Museum of Art opened in 2005 on the waterfront of Nagasaki City.

It is located astride a channel whose walkways are public thourouhfares. The roof gardens are also public spaces.

It was designed by the renowned Japanese architect Kuma Kengo.

The permanent collection concentrates on art, in a wide variety of media, connected to Nagasaki since the Meiji Period.

The museum is also home to the Suma collection of hisorical and modern Spanish world collected by the former Envoy to Spain during WWII, Suma Yakichiro.

I did not go inside so I have no report on the art or the interior architecture.

Earlier on my walk around Kyushu I visited another Kuma Kengo building, the Kyushu Geibunkan.

The previous post in this series exploring Nagasaki was the nearby Nagasakiminato Ferry Terminal.