By Cathy Hirano

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.


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.


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.






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.



And of course the view is cycadophytes.



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).



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.


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.



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.





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.



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.



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.)



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.



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.