Iwase-ke, Traditional farmhouse in Gokayama, Japan
Iwase-ke is a traditional farmhouse in the gasshō-zukuri style, featuring a distinctive steep thatched roof that rises over multiple floor levels designed for silk production. The structure maintains its original wooden framework and room arrangement that brought household work and living spaces together.
Construction took roughly 8 years in the early modern period, and the building later became the home of the Iwase family during Japan's Meiji transformation. It remains a testament to craft traditions in this mountain region.
The layout reflects how farming families lived and worked in the same space, with areas designed specifically for raising silkworms as part of daily life. Today, visitors see how rooms flowed into one another to support this important household industry.
You can walk through multiple levels and see the original functional spaces that reveal how daily life unfolded in this type of home. The rooms follow the traditional layout, which makes exploring the interior a bit like wandering through the natural flow of the house.
The entire structure was assembled without nails or metal parts, using only wooden joints and rope bindings to hold it together. This ancient craft technique allowed the framework to remain solid across centuries.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 60,000 contributors worldwide.
