Banjo Brewery Main House

What the Banjo Brewery Main House Is

The Banjo Brewery Main House (萬乗醸造主屋, Banjō Jōzō Shuoku) is a two-storey timber dwelling of the late Edo period in Otakacho, Midori Ward, Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on 31 July 2007 under registration number 23-0234. It faces north onto Shinmachi-dori, the old through street of the Odaka district, and is the building by which the brewery presents itself to the town.

The house measures 8 Ken along the ridge and 6.5 ken in depth, with a floor area of 171 square meters. The roof is Kirizuma-zukuri covered in Sangawara-buki pantiles, and the entrance is on the long side, an arrangement called Hirairi. Inside, the eastern part is an earth-floored work space and the western part holds the living rooms, with an 8-mat Tatami room and a Tokonoma alcove in the northwest corner.

The Kuno family who built it served as village headmen of Otaka under the Tokugawa shogunate, and each head of the house has taken the name Kuheiji. The brewery gives 1647 as its founding year. The Aichi Prefectural Board of Education notes that documentary evidence of sake brewing by the family begins in 1837, which falls close to the estimated construction date of the Banjo Brewery Main House, somewhere between 1830 and 1867.

Why It Was Registered

The Banjo Brewery Main House was registered under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the nation. What was recognised is less any single feature of the building than the part it plays in the view along the street.

Twelve structures on and around the brewery site were registered on the same day: the main house, the former rice milling workshop, the bottling workshop, the original brewing storehouse, the middle storehouse, the new storehouse, the polished rice warehouse, the detached quarters, the storehouse, the inner well, the former brewing storehouse with barrel repair shop, and the outer well. A brewery compound surviving with its dwelling, fermentation halls, workshops and wells still separated by function is uncommon.

Three sake breweries still operate in Odaka. The row of main house, storehouse and new storehouse along Shinmachi-dori shows that the street plan of the brewing quarter remains in working use rather than preserved as a display.

What to Look For

The first thing a visitor registers is how dark the street front is. The north wall of the Banjo Brewery Main House is Shinkabe construction, with posts and beams left exposed, and the plaster between them is black. Openings are few, so the wall reads as a single plane. Low winter sunlight throws thin post shadows across it.

That black surface continues east into the adjoining storehouse and its front annex, whose upper walls are finished in the same black plaster. From the street the dwelling and the storehouse merge into one band, and the join is hard to place.

The courtyard side reverses the scheme: the same exposed post-and-beam framing, but with white plaster. The Banjo Brewery Main House is black to the town and white to its own yard. The courtyard lies inside the working premises and cannot be seen by visitors.

The pantiled roof is shared with the middle storehouse, the new storehouse and the polished rice warehouse behind. Walking the western end of Shinmachi-dori brings these roofs into line, one ridge stepping behind another.

Visiting

The Banjo Brewery Main House belongs to an operating sake company. The interior is closed, and the grounds cannot be entered. Viewing is limited to the exterior from Shinmachi-dori. The company states on the FAQ page of its official site that it does not sell sake at the brewery, so there is no shop or reception for callers.

Photography of the exterior from the public street is not restricted. Pointing a camera into the yard or at people at work is not welcome. Winter is the brewing season and staff move in and out of the gates, so it is worth standing clear of the entrances.

The nearest station is Odaka on the JR Tokaido Main Line, about 15 minutes on foot. Cross the road in front of the station, enter the old quarter, and follow the left bank of the Otaka River westward until the brick chimney and the black walls come into view. Continuing west past the Banjo Brewery Main House leads to Odaka Castle Park. Midori Ward publishes a 5.7 kilometre historic walking route, the Odaka Castle Town Course, which passes this brewing street on the way to the castle site.