4x4 house
building
The 4x4 house is a private residential house designed by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando and located in Tarumi-ku, Kobe, Hyogo, on the coast of the Inland Sea in Japan.
History
The 4x4 house plan was built in the aftermath of the Great Hanshin earthquake. The architecture magazine Brutus invited its readers to submit development ideas to a selection of architects. The latter picked this sea-front site idea. The redevelopment project was comprised or narrow and chaotic strips of lands. The house was built in 2003.
The lot, about 65 square meters, was the property of Yoshinari Nakata. 1/4 of the land is regularly flooded by seawater. Nakata was the reader who suggested his own lot to the Brutus call-to-submission. Tadao Ando was interested by the site's limitations and its closeness to the 1995 earthquake.
“4x4 house” enters the record as building. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what house and building can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“4x4 house” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, house and building provides the most credible route into that argument.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q48791235. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2003 and 1995.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “4x4 house”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 4x4 house primary sources, 4x4 house archive and house research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “4x4 house”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “4x4 house” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.