The Jakarta Post
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results'Ugly history': Battle to restore iconic Japan brothel building
Taiyoshi Hyakuban hasn't functioned as a brothel for decades, and now operates as a restaurant, but it is seen as a symbol of the surrounding neighbourhood.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
This picture taken on October 12, 2021 shows the exterior of Taiyoshi Hyakuban, a former brothel-turned-restaurant in the historic Tobita-Shinchi red light district in Osaka. (AFP/Philip Fong)
A
t the corner of a red-light district in the Japanese city of Osaka stands an unlikely architectural gem: a century-old former brothel at the centre of a restoration campaign.
Taiyoshi Hyakuban hasn't functioned as a brothel for decades, and now operates as a restaurant, but it is seen as a symbol of the surrounding neighbourhood, which is still associated with the sex industry.
Experts say the wooden two-storey structure is a rare original example of architecture from the Taisho era of 1912-1926.
"Most Japanese architecture dating from a century or more burned down in wartime air raids or big fires," Shinya Hashizume, a professor of architectural history at Osaka Prefecture University, told AFP.
"Old brothel buildings, in particular, have rarely survived," he said on a visit to the site.
Taiyoshi Hyakuban has dozens of Japanese and Western-style party rooms, some featuring delicately painted sliding doors and ceilings with ornate inlays.
Murals of festivals, goddesses playing traditional instruments and Dutch merchants in old-fashioned clothes adorn the suites, which surround a garden where towering "yin and yang" rocks represent men and women.
More from The Weekender
Siapa Anda? Mengapa Anda?
What begins as a small grammatical curiosity becomes a larger question about language, culture and the way we understand ourselves in relation to others - and, ultimately, about what we risk losing in a world increasingly impatient with reflection, ambiguity and the humanities.
A passport to the kingdom of the sick
A breast cancer diagnosis, a journey to the kingdom of the sick and a determination to describe what lies there without metaphor, euphemism or the word “fight.”
The weight of time
Richard Mille’s newest ultralight timepiece pares down haute horlogerie to its mechanical necessities, proving that sophistication often comes from knowing what to leave out.
