Court nobles in Kyoto were special families serving successive emperors. They lived in big houses around the Kyoto Imperial Palace to support successive emperors in the fields of rituals and culture for longer than 1,000 years. In the second half of the 19th century, when Japan’s modernization started, the then emperor moved to Tokyo from Kyoto followed by most court nobles. But the Reizei family remained in Kyoto because they were assigned to the position of maintenance and preservation of the Kyoto Imperial Palace property. The Reizei family is also known as the specialist in charge of waka, a 31-syllable Japanese poem being popular among the Imperial family. The photo shows the main entrance of the house of the Reizei family in Kyoto, built in 1790, and the entire house is designated as an important cultural property. This is the one and only original house of court noble in existence.
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