Tokyo Explorer

Like Rikugien, Kyu Iwasaki Teien was once owned by Mitsubishi founders, the Iwasaki family, and like the Kyu Furukawa building, designed by British architect Josiah Condor.

As well as the garden, the house is open to the public and the interior with its Western-style furnishings and fittings show how eager the wealthy Japanese were to adopt European influences, associated as they were, with status and power.

One part of the house, however, remains distinctly Japanese, and a narrow hallway leads you between two different worlds, telling you a lot about the turn-of-the–century Meiji-era (1868-1912).

In this part of the building, there is a tea house, where you can sip green tea or one of the ‘kakigori,’ shaved ice drinks, on a tatami mat floor, and despite the grandeur of the rest of the building, the feeling pervades that this was where the family felt most at home.