What is Kominka Japan?
Connecting & Sharing Resources with Minka Enthusiasts from Around the World!
Mission Statement – Kominka Japan is dedicated to developing and sharing essential information, facilitating access to resources, connecting people and groups to encourage mutual education and understanding, and enable passionate individuals to acquire, renovate, maintain and preserve minka. In so doing, we will raise both appreciation and awareness of this singularly Japanese architectural tradition domestically and abroad. Kominka Japan is founded with a deep respect for community and the traditions and craftsmanship that minka uniquely encapsulate.
Kominka Japan began as a Facebook page established by Stuart Galbraith IV in 2016. Its numbers swelled in 2021 as Japan’s akiya (“empty house”) problem and the availability of traditional homes across the Japanese countryside became international news.
Today, the Facebook page enjoys a membership of nearly 4,500 people from across the globe. Its members freely share their experiences, advice, resources, and other information to help others searching for their dream minka, those renovating and preserving minka, and those looking to better integrate and reach out to their newly adopted communities.
Kominka Japan’s Minka Summit first brought together guest speakers, workshop presenters, traditional carpenters, plasterers, thatch roofers and others for a weekend of lectures, minka tours, and other events in Hanase, Kyoto (in 2022 and 2024) and Aichi (in 2023).
We hope to see you back in Hanase for Minka Summit 2026!
Stuart Galbraith IV is a film historian who has lived in his 1810 minka in the mountains north of Kyoto since 2016 with his wife, Yukiyo, and daughter, Sadie. He is the author of seven books, including The Emperor and the Wolf – The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune and Japanese Cinema and a co-writer of Academy Award-winner Steven Okazaki’s documentary Mifune – The Last Samurai (2015). A former archivist for Warner Bros. and MGM, Galbraith writes reviews for the website The Digital Bits and frequently does audio commentaries and produces short documentaries for DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K releases, including such films as Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Sanjuro, and Dersu Uzala, Kinji Fukasaku’s Battles without Honor and Humanity, Martin Scorsese’s Silence, and Joshua Logan’s Sayonara. His most recent credit is an audio commentary for the Powell & Pressburger classic A Matter of Life and Death. He also wrote and produced the documentary short, The Minka of Gaijin Alley (2019).