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'Totoro's house' slated for permanent preservation

Tuesday, 05 February 2008

A 79-year-old home in Tokyo's Suginami-ku dubbed the "house where Totoro lives" after being praised by Hayao Miyazaki, director of the popular anime film "My Neighbor Totoro," is set to be preserved.

The Suginami Ward Office has decided to make the house, whose future was previously uncertain, part of a park.

"We want it to be a home that serves as a model of coexistence between humans and greenery," a ward official said.

Local residents had called for the structure to be preserved after it was praised by Miyazaki, who said it was a house in which people and plants interacted as living things.

The wooden, western-style home was built in the Asagaya Kita district of Suginami-ku in about 1929. Miyazaki, who happened to pass the home about 20 years ago, introduced it in his book "Totoro no Sumu Ie" (The house where Totoro lives), along with photographs and illustrations.

In July last year, the owner moved out, leaving the future of the empty house uncertain. This prompted local residents to form a petition to preserve it, and about 6,300 signatures were collected.

The ward plans to purchase about 850 square meters of land in fiscal 2008, and turn the area into a park the following fiscal year so people can see the home up close. The project is expected to cost about 400 million yen.

Miyazaki praised the move.

"If my book is the reason for it being preserved, I would be really happy," he was quoted as telling local government officials.

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