By Ines Keane
Most Japanese castles sit on a hill. Matsumoto’s does not. Wikipedia calls it a flatland castle, built on a plain, and the city around it lies in a basin with mountains on every side.
Where it sits
Wikipedia’s article on the city puts Matsumoto in Nagano Prefecture, about 75 km south of Nagano City and 167 km from central Tokyo. The Hida Mountains rise to the west at about 3,000 metres, and Mount Hotakadake, at 3,190 metres, is the highest point inside the city limits. The same page gives a January mean of minus 0.3 °C and average annual snowfall of 76 cm, with 33 cm of it in January. So it is cold, but not a deep-snow town.
The castle
Wikipedia says the castle was first called Fukashi. Shimadachi Sadanaga built a fortification here in the Eisho era, 1504 to 1520. Ishikawa Kazumasa and his son Yasunaga built the keep and other parts after 1590, and much of the castle was believed finished by 1593 or 1594. A furniture-history page from the city’s visitor site tells it differently: it says Sadayoshi Ogasawara resumed his family’s rule in 1582 and renamed the town from Fukashi to Matsumoto. We note both and do not join them.
The keep is one of twelve surviving original keeps in Japan, says Wikipedia. Five original structures were designated National Treasures in 1952, among them the keep itself and the Tsukimi-yagura, the moon-viewing turret. The visitor site describes a “jet-black keep” with five external storeys and six internal floors, and calls it the oldest surviving keep of that kind.
Nearly lost
In 1872 the new government ordered former feudal fortifications destroyed, Wikipedia says. Most structures were razed and the outer grounds sold at auction. Ichikawa Ryozo and local residents campaigned to save the keep, and the city acquired it. By the late Meiji period it was leaning, and a great renovation ran from 1903 to 1913. The castle became a National Historic Site in 1930. Dismantling and rebuilding of the main keep buildings took place from 1950 to 1955, and a gate and wall section were reconstructed in 1990, a drum gate in 1999. A magnitude 5.4 earthquake on 30 June 2011 caused about ten cracks in the inner wall of the main tower.
Nakamachi
The visitor site describes Nakamachi as a street of merchant houses along the road to Zenkoji temple, flourishing in the Edo period (1603 to 1868). Many clay-walled storehouses, kura, with white and black namako plaster walls, were built late in the Edo period and in the Meiji period as protection against great fires. Many remain, and the street holds a folk-furniture showroom, craft shops and cafés. Wells are found through the old merchant quarter, and a Saturday-morning farmers’ market runs from April to December. A 2017 blog from a regional visitor site says the kura have been “disappearing of late” as new buildings go up, so treat the picture as one that changes.
Next door is Nawate-dori, “Frog Street”. The same blog says it once ran along an outer moat of the castle and that the name comes from its long, narrow, rope-like shape. The frog decoration is said to come from the croaking of kajika frogs on the Metoba riverbank. It lists hand cloths, zori slippers and lacquerware among the goods sold.
Furniture
Matsumoto’s best-known craft is furniture. According to the city’s visitor site, Sadayoshi Ogasawara set furniture making up as part of the town’s trade in 1582, and in 1884 the town made 5,600 dining tables, 4,000 of them sent to Tokyo, Aichi and Yamanashi. In 1948 the architectural photographer Sanshiro Ikeda began a revival along folk-art, mingei, lines, encouraged by Soetsu Yanagi, founder of the mingei movement.
A national craft-promotion page and the visitor site agree on the method. Timber is air-dried, then dried artificially to 8 to 9 per cent moisture and seasoned for about a month. Joints are cut by hand, and finished pieces are lacquered at least eight times. The woods named are Japanese cherry birch, oak, ash, zelkova and chestnut. They disagree on the designation: the visitor site says 1974, the craft-promotion page 26 February 1976. We show both.
Dates in order
- 1504 to 1520: first fortification on the site, according to Wikipedia.
- 1582: Ogasawara rule resumes and the town is renamed, according to the visitor site.
- After 1590: keep built, according to Wikipedia.
- 1872: demolition order, according to Wikipedia.
- 1903 to 1913: Meiji renovation, according to Wikipedia.
- 1950 to 1955: keep dismantled and rebuilt, according to Wikipedia.
What kind of sources these are
Wikipedia; the city’s visitor-information site, which is promotional; a national traditional-craft promotion page; and a regional visitor-site blog from 2017. We read no museum page.
What we left out
Prices, opening times, fares and the castle’s gun museum.
Quick answers
Is Matsumoto Castle a National Treasure? Yes. Wikipedia says the five original structures of the main keep complex were designated National Treasures in 1952.
What is Nakamachi in Matsumoto? According to the city’s visitor site, it is a former merchant street whose kura storehouses, with namako plaster walls, were built as fire protection.
What is Matsumoto folk furniture? A national craft-promotion page says it is handmade furniture, lacquered by hand in at least eight coats, with a designated traditional-craft status.
Related on this site: gifu-wagasa-oiled-paper-umbrella-how-made, ekiben-station-bento-history-first-sold, yuzu-bath-winter-solstice-toji-kochi
Roam first. Shop later.