The construction of this building was decided in 1937, on the occasion in 1935 of the “Six hundredth anniversary of the death of Masashige KUSUNOKI”, and it was completed on 16 May 1942. The building was then named “Reitenkan”, and a plaque written by KONOE Fumimaro was placed at the entrance. In 1969, with the opening of the “Osaka Prefectural Youth House”, the building was used as an auditorium, but in 2001 it was closed, and in 2004 it was transferred to Shimamoto-cho City, where it became the “Shimamoto-cho City Historical and Cultural Museum”. The building was renovated before the opening of the museum, but it retains the simple appearance of the time. It is built on an stone base, and has a traditional design with an Irimoya (hipped and gabled) roof and wooden clerestory windows (mokoshi). The gables are finished with wooden battens (Kiturekoushi) and decorated under the ridge with wooden carvings (gegyo).
Main body of the YOKOYAMA family residence (Yokoyama Hospital)
It is a two-storey wooden building with both, tiled hipped roof and an asymmetrical gable roof. The ground floor façade has a wooden clerestory window. The first floor is finished with white plaster up to the eaves, so that the pillars are not visible. This floor has windows with wooden bars (Mushikomado). On the north-western side there is a beautifully constructed single-storey annex.
This is the only surviving example of an early modern inn in the area of influence of the former Takatsuki Castle. It was here that ITAGAKI Count Taisuke stayed in 1882. In addition to the main building, the retreat (Meiji period), the gate and moat (Meiji period), the warehouse (Edo period), and the barn (Edo period) are registered as tangible cultural properties of Japan. The building was selected for the first Takatsuki City Landscape Award in the building category.
Abeno Seimei Shrine
The deity of this shrine is Abe Seimei. According to the legend of the shrine, it was founded in 1007, two years after the death of Seimei, at the request of Shogun Hanayama.
This place appears in “The Legend of the Farewell of Kuzunohako” which was written by Izumo TAKEDA in the Edo period (1603-1867) and became famous all over Japan as it was performed in Kabuki and Bunraku. The temple was devastated by the troubles of the late Tokugawa shogunate, but through the efforts of local volunteers, plans were made to restore it. In 1925, it was completed, designed by Tanejiro YOSHIDA and built by the master carpenter of Shitenohji, Shigeharu KONGO. It is now a designated intangible cultural property.
Sugie Noh Stage
The Sugie Noh stage was built in 1917 with the donation of a bridge from the Noh stage of the former Kishiwada Castle. The stage is the oldest existing Noh stage in Osaka Prefecture and is based on the Nishi Honganji Kita-butai (Northern Stage of Nishi Hongaji Temple), which is designated a national treasure. The paintings on the background panels are by Tomimaro HIGUCHI. The size of the stage is 2 square ken (about 2.6mx2.6m), slightly smaller than the original size. On the stage is a plaque with the words “Kokka” written by the last lord of the Kishiwada clan, OKADANOBORI. This type of Noh theatre is very valuable because it was built during the Meiji and Taisho periods (1868-1912), when Noh theatres changed from the opposite style (open style) to the closed style.
Since the stage and the audience are in separate buildings, you can feel the wind of the four seasons on your skin and enjoy some of the atmosphere of the time when Noh was performed in the open air.
Jisen Kaikan
Jisen Kaikan was commissioned in 1932 by Jinkichi TERADA as a social club facility to commemorate the great work of Jinyoshige TERADA, the founder of Kishiwada Spinning Co. It was designed by the architect Setsu WATANABE and constructed by the Obayashi Corporation. It was later donated to Kishiwada City after Jinkichi retired as mayor of Kishiwada. After the donation, the building was mainly used as a meeting hall and a guest room. After the war, it was used as a meeting hall for the city council, and is now open to the public as a venue for cultural activities in Kishiwada. The building is notable for being one of the smaller works by Setsu WATANABE. The building has a simple, undecorated exterior, but the entrance, with its colonnaded arcades, shows stylistic motifs of early modern Spanish architecture. The chandeliers, staircase balustrades and other decorative metal objects were lost during the war due to the metal recovery order, but the building retains much of its original design.
Tako Jizo Station
The station building was opened in April 1914. The name of the station, Tako Jizo, is the common name of the Tenseiji Temple, located about 500 meters west of the station. It is said that when a revolt broke out at Kishiwada Castle, a large priest (an incarnation of Jizo) and thousands of octopuses saved the castle. Some of the pillars of the Takojizo station house are made from old rails manufactured by the Carnegie Steel Company in the USA, and rails from the founding of the Nankai Railway in 1897 are also used.
Abeno Oji Shrine main Hall ( former Otokoyama Hachiman Shrine main Hall)
According to “Setshu Higashinarigun Abegongen Engi” (in the shrine documentation), this Abeoji shrine, founded by Emperor Nintoku, flourished as a branch of Kumano Shrine at a time when Kumano pilgrimages were popular. Today it houses the patron deity of the people of Abeno. The former main shrine was built in 1682 and moved and renovated in 1908. The Otokoyama Hachiman Shrine was built in Semba Azuchimachi in 1688, and was moved (relocation of the deity) to the Abeno site in 1907, in accordance with the Shrine Enshrinement Law in force at the time. The Semba district was burnt down in an air raid during World War II, and the former main pavilion of the Otokoyama Hachiman Shrine is the only remnant of what the Semba Shrine looked like in the Edo period.
Osaka City University Main Building (Building No. 1)
Osaka University of Commerce (now Osaka City University) was one of the three former governmental business schools along with those in Tokyo and Kobe. This building was constructed as its main body. It has an east-west wing facing south, with an auditorium at the back, a large gate and a tall symbolic tower at the central entrance. The building was designed by Masafumi ITO of the Osaka City Construction Department. The white monolithic form, windows and rhythmic pillars of its facade are characteristic of modernist architecture, while the cylindrical balconies, pillars and round interior windows are expressionist.
Minase-Jingu Shrine Prayer Hall
This shrine was rebuilt in 1925 at the expense of the government. It was designed by Takashi KAKUNAN, an engineer from the Ministry of the Interior. The shrine, built on a low platform with a gabled roof and a copper plate roof, blends into the surrounding forest landscape to create a grand and serene atmosphere. It has unique eaves with weathered rafters and apart from a central beam decorated with chrysanthemums in the centre and a carved beam support nose in the shape of a fist, the framework is light and simple. In the shed, the central part has a decorative double ceiling and the upper part of the side rooms has a coffered ceiling. After graduating from the Department of Architecture at Tokyo Imperial University in 1915, KAKUNAN worked for the Ministry of the Interior in the Shrine Bureau, and participated in the design of many shrines, including Nagata Shrine (Hyogo Prefecture, 1928) and Mishima Taisha Shrine (Shizuoka Prefecture, 1931).
Main hall of the Kanjin-Ji Temple
This main hall is the successor of the main hall described as a “five-room lecture hall with a cypress bark roof” in the “Enki Shizai-cho” (chronicles) of Kanshinji Temple in 883, and is thought to have been rebuilt in the early Muromachi period. The hall faces south, with a length of 7 ken (about 12,5m ) and a beam of 7 ken, and is of Irimoya construction(Hipped roof and gables) with a tiled roof (classic tiles Hongawara). The inner sanctuary consists of an outer sanctuary in the front with two spans, an inner sanctuary in the centre with a room disposition of five by four spans, side sanctuaries on each side of the inner sanctuary, and a rear sanctuary with one span of width. The inner sanctum is three spans by one at the back, and the inner sanctum is made of a closet with a Buddhist altar. The main image of Nyoirin Kannon is enshrined there. In front of the altar, on the left and right sides, there is a mandala wall. It is a typical example of an eclectic style Buddhist temple, incorporating both Japanese and Zen styles.