Bansui-so¡¦
Gudabutsu-an Hermitage
Bansui-so, which lies at the foot of he castle hill, was constructed as a
detached French style residence by Earl Sadakoto Hisamatsu, who was the 15th
lord of the Matsudaira Family of Matsuyama Castle. He have been livung in
France for a long time.
This building is said to have been completed rather quickly for the Crown
Prince(The Showa Emperor) to have a place to stay during his visit to Matsuyama
for the maneuver of the army, in 1922(Taisho11). After that, this building is
recognized as the brilliant field of society of the prominent person in various
circles.
This building was designed by Mr.Shinichiro Kigo who made plans for many
western-style archtecture, the headquater of Ishizaki steamship company,the
Ehime prefectual office and so on later, and introduced concrete archtecture in
Ehime Prefecture for the first time. In night, the splendid figure of the
building opened out by lighting up in the green of Castle hill, is particulary
beautiful.
The several characteristics of the building are the curved staircase of teak,
splendid stained glass ordered from Hawaii, and other delicate and social circle
s of distinguished persons. It became an annex of the Prefectual Art Museum in 1979 and exhibitions mainly manifesting the artists from the prefecture are held here.
For a pearid after World War II, this building was requisitioned by American
Army. After that, it came to now through a domestic court and a prefectual local
art hall, and rose exhibition in May, chrysanthemum exhibition in Nov. are held
every year in the gurden.
Gudabutsu-an hermitage
"Gudabutsu-an is the name of
The master of it, pass the winter
Being confined to the room " (Soseki)
"Arrangement balloonflower in a vase,
For a short time, the room has
Been revised to temporary study" (Shiki)
On 9th Apr.,Meiji 28(1895), Soseki Natsume who took his new post as the English teacher of Matsuyama Junior Highschool, and he once took off his traveling clothes at Japanese-style inn "Kido-ya",he settled in lodge house "Aisho-tei" at the foot of Castle Hill.
But, in June of this year, he moved to the cottage separated from the main
building of Yoshikata Ueno's residence located 2 ban cho, that he named
"Gudabutsu-an hermitage" from his pen name "Gudabutsu- slowpoke Buddha".
On the other hand, in Mar., 1895, Shiki Masaoka, who was in the same class
of the first high school in Tokyo with Soseki, went to the front as a war correspondent in the Shino-Japanese War(of 1894-5) and in May of that year,he contracted hemooptysis on his way back to Japan.
After he stayed at Suma to recuperate and got a breathing space, on 25th Aug.,
he came back to his native country Matsuyama to rest himself. On 27th, Aug., he
lodged with this "Gudabutsu-an" on the suggestion of Soseki. They got along together, Shiki in the downstairs room, Soseki in the upstairs room under the one roof, for over 50 days until Shiki left Mitsuhama Port for Tokyo on 19th Oct.. For only over 50 days of living together with Soseki, he led a number of disciples of Haiku Association "Shofu-kai" gathering to take lessons in originating Haiku and made up into the theory of Haiku "The summary lecture of Haiku". Soseki took part in the Haiku meeting and made efforts to originate Haiku too.
From that time on, some people lived in Gudabutsu-an, but in Jul., 1945, it was suffered the war damage of World War II and burned down. After that, this hermitage at present was designed faithfully to the prototype of it, and restored to the appearance made us remember its ancient state in the backyard of Bansui-so in 1982.
