Mori Ogai was one of Japan’s literary greats, and he was posted to Kokura as Surgeon General of the 12^th Division of the (former) Japanese Imperial Army. The residence was built around 1897 and is a Japanese style house made up of six rooms. It is believed that Mori Ogai mainly used an 8-mat room and a smaller 4.5-mat room on the south side. Currently an earthen floor room is used as a display space for materials such as his chronicles and other precious materials. The residence appears in the novel Tori (Chickens), and as you view the garden you can conjure up images of that era.