page_title: Ueda Sōko-ryū
section_title: Ueda Sōko
hierarchical_section_title: Ueda Sōko-ryū / Ueda Sōko
caption_attribution_description: English: Family crest of Ueda Sōko
context_page_description: Ueda Sōko-ryū is a cultural aesthetic practice, or tradition, of Japanese tea ceremony that originated within the samurai class of feudal Japan. The tradition is commonly called the Ueda Sōko Ryū or Ueda Ryū. The founder from whom the tradition takes its name was Sengoku period warlord Ueda Sōko. The customs, etiquette and values of the samurai are woven throughout all aspects of the tradition's practice of chanoyu, a practice that has continued unbroken for over 400 years.
context_section_description: After first serving Niwa Nagahide as a page, Ueda Sōko was later chosen by Toyotomi Hideyoshi as one of his aides and daimyō. Ueda learned chanoyu from Sen no Rikyu and Furuta Oribe before establishing his own style of chanoyu, deeply influenced by the values and customs of the samurai of the Sengoku period (mid 15th-early 17th century). Since Ueda's time the Ueda School has continued for 16 generations under an iemoto system. The present and 16th iemoto is Ueda Sōkei.
  Ueda Sōko is famous as one of the leading garden designers of the Momoyama period (1568–1603). He is well known for designing and constructing many gardens listed in Japan as places of great scenic beauty. These include Shukkeien (Hiroshima prefecture), Tokushima Castle Front Palace Garden (also known as Senshūkaku-teien, Tokushima Prefecture), Nagoya Castle Garden (Ninomaru-teien, Nagoya prefecture), Wakayama Castle's Nishinomaru-teien and Kokuwadera-teien (Wakayama prefecture).
  Following the Siege of Osaka (1614–1615), the Toyotomi clan was disbanded in 1619 and Ueda relocated to Hiroshima under his lord Asano Nagaakira who was to become daimyō of the Geishū Domain (Hiroshima Domain). Ueda was given a fief in the West of Hiroshima prefecture yielding 17,000 koku of rice (around 2,788 tonnes) and became Asano's chief retainer for the Geishū Domain.
  As chief retainers of the Geishsū Domain, the Ueda family governed their land in West Hiroshima for generations. Sōko's chanoyu was passed down through the generations and continues to thrive today.
caption: "Kuginuki-mon", the family crest of Ueda Sōko. The crest represents a large nail-pull used in constructing temples.
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