Shiga Naoya Former Residence

Introduction

Shiga Naoya moved to Takabatake in Nara in 1929 and lived here for nine years, completing A Dark Night's Passing during that time. This was not an old house he bought but one he designed himself and had built by sukiya carpenters from Kyoto: plain timber, lines so restrained they are often compared to the spareness of his prose. The rooms worth lingering in are the study and the sunroom, where writers and painters such as Mushanokoji Saneatsu and Umehara Ryuzaburo once gathered and where the original tables and chairs still face an unforced garden. The house keeps the traces of daily life rather than being turned into galleries, so a circuit shows how he liked daylight, garden trees and ordinary objects to sit together; senryo, manryo and nandina berry from January to March, camellias and cherries in March and April, azaleas and irises in April and May. Admission is JPY 500 for adults, JPY 200 for junior high and JPY 100 for primary school, open 09:30-16:30 with last entry 30 minutes before closing and extensions to 17:30 in some spring and summer periods, closed at New Year. It is at 1237-2 Takabatake-cho, a ten-minute loop bus from JR or Kintetsu Nara to Hashimachi then five minutes on foot. There is no car park, and it pairs with Shinyakushiji, the Irie Taikichi Memorial Photo Museum and Naramachi for a half day in Takabatake.

✨ Highlights

🛈 Practical Info