2012年06月28日

Castle Manor

Takamatsu was ruled by the Matsudaira clan during the Edo period (1603-1868). During the Meiji Restoration, however, rule by daimyo (territorial lords) in Japan was abolished along with the samurai class. Takamatsu castle was decommissioned and the castle keep was dismantled. Although the Matsudaira family no longer ruled, they still owned a fair bit of land, and the family head built himself a stately manor within the former castle grounds as his second house. It took three years and was completed in 1917.

Castle Manor
View of Hiunkaku from a castle turret

The manor is actually built in the same style as the residences many daimyo lived in during the Edo period. It is comprised of a series of buildings all joined by covered passageways and opening onto courtyard gardens.

Castle Manor
Looking down a passageway.


The large entrance way was originally designed to fit the lord's palanquin, for door-to-door chauffeur service. A rickshaw would fit in here fine, too.

Castle Manor

Castle Manor


Each room is named after the view it offers, such as “pine-tree room”, “cycadophyte room”, and “wave room” (on the second floor looking out to sea).

The “cycadophyte room” is huge, with very few pillars to obstruct the view.

Castle Manor

And of course the view is cycadophytes.

Castle Manor

In typical understated Japanese fashion, the workmanship is exquisite, combining traditional Japanese woodwork, stonework and gardening with such Western touches as German glass for the window-panes (now almost 85 years old).

Castle Manor

Although it has been designated as an important cultural property, it's still very much in use for exhibitions, weddings, concerts, tea ceremony, and public viewing.

Castle Manor
Sink area for preparing tea ceremony

It was also used as the set of “Haru no Yuki”, a movie based on Yukio Mishima's novel, Spring Snow. They accidentally broke one of the glass panes in the window during filming. Hard to replace 85-year-old German glass I expect. The room on the second floor is where the Showa emperor stayed.

Castle Manor

I'll finish off with some other interesting touches that it's sometimes hard for a non-Japanese eye to catch.

The stepping stones (tobi-ishi) in the garden are huge making me feel like Gulliver in the land of the giants.

Castle Manor

Castle Manor

The stone water basin below (chozu bachi) for washing hands and mouth before the tea ceremony is also enormous and it comes with a long-handled dipper. It makes you wonder what kind of guests they were expecting.

Castle Manor

And what are all the coins doing on this rock? Take a look at the little pine sapling growing out of the crack. The coins are a tribute to that feisty seedling for sprouting in such an inhospitable place. Japanese people often pay tribute and respect to the spirit they sense in nature and this tree has become like a mini-shrine.

Castle Manor

Having once aspired to be a carpenter, I can't help but admire this door made of a single sheet of superbly grained wood. And these doors are designed not to stick either. (The bottom runner extends the entire length of the door so that there's no uneven shrinkage.)

Castle Manor

It may be hard to see in the photo below, but the residents did not want the gardeners traipsing through their house to tend the plants in the inner courtyards. So they built passageways under the corridors for the gardeners to get through.

Castle Manor

Hiunkaku is located in Tamamo Park just across from Takamatsu JR station.
Admission: 200 yen for adults. No extra admission for Hiunkaku. Free Jan. 1-3, May 5.
Park hours: 5:30 AM to 19:00 in summer; 7:00 AM to 17:00 PM in winter. Closed Dec. 29-31.



My Profile
Cathy Hirano キャシー ヒラノ
I've lived in Japan since 1978. After graduating from a Japanese university with a BA in cultural anthropology in 1983, I worked as a translator in a Japanese consulting engineering firm in Tokyo for several years. My Japanese husband and I moved to Takamatsu in 1987 to raise our two children in a slower-paced environment away from the big city pressures. We've never regretted it. I work as a freelance translator and interpreter and am involved in a lot of community work, including volunteering for Second Hand, a local NGO that supports educational and vocational training initiatives in Cambodia, and for the Takamatsu International Association. I love living in Takamatsu.

※会員のみコメントを受け付けております、ログインが必要です。
上の画像に書かれている文字を入力して下さい
 
<ご注意>
書き込まれた内容は公開され、ブログの持ち主だけが削除できます。