Former Isobe Family Storehouse

A Free-Standing Storehouse at the Back of the Plot

The Former Isobe Family Storehouse (旧磯部家住宅土蔵, Kyū Isobe-ke Jūtaku Dozō) is an earthen-walled storehouse of 1875 in Inuyama City, Aichi Prefecture, entered on the national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 9 February 2005. Built in Dozo-zukuri construction, it has two stories, a tiled roof and a building area of 37 square meters, making it the smallest of the five buildings on the property.

It stands alone at the eastern rear of the plot, touching none of the other buildings. The plan measures three ken along the ridge and two and a half across, under a Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles, entered from the gable end in the Tsumairi manner. A canopy shelters the west face.

To reach it you pass from the main house on Honmachi Street through the inner courtyard and into the rear garden. The Former Isobe Family Storehouse marks the point where a merchant plot stops being a place of business and becomes a place of storage.

Why a Small Storehouse Was Built This Well

The criterion applied reads "contributes to the historic landscape of the nation," and the register number is 23-0170 from the forty-fifth round. The storehouse was listed on the same day as the main house, the rear parlor, the inner storehouse and the storage shed.

What earns this building its place is the finish rather than the size. The lower wall is faced in Namako-kabe, flat tiles laid in a grid with the joints raised in ridges of lime plaster, a treatment that keeps rain and ground damp away from the earthen wall behind. Door and window openings are worked in kakeko-nuri, a stepped profile that closes without a gap when the shutters are shut. A moulded cornice runs beneath the eaves.

Every one of these is a serious fireproofing and damp-proofing technique, applied here to a building of barely 37 square meters. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database describes the Former Isobe Family Storehouse as small in scale yet carefully made down to the details, and calls it integral to the layout of the property.

Fire took a merchant's goods and account books in a single night. The thickness of these walls is the practical answer to that risk.

What to Look For

Start with the tiled lower wall. The lattice pattern formed by the tiles and the raised plaster joints looks ornamental, but the shape follows the function: the plaster stands proud of the tile edges so that water runs across the tile faces and never reaches the earth wall.

Then look at the west doorway under its canopy. Count the layers of shutter and door. The stepped kakeko-nuri profile exists to cut off the path smoke and heat would take once everything is closed.

Seeing inside has recently become possible. Inuyama City used to open only the fire door and keep the inner white shutter and the copper screen closed. After partial repair work, on fine dry days the white shutter is now opened and visitors can look through the copper screen into the storehouse. The wall thickness registers immediately, along with how little light a building like this was ever meant to admit.

Whether the interior is visible depends on the weather that day. If the inside of the Former Isobe Family Storehouse is what you have come for, choose a clear, dry day.

Visiting

The storehouse is open year round as part of the Former Isobe Residence Restored Facility, and admission is free. Hours are 9:00 to 17:00, with last entry at 16:30. The site closes from 29 to 31 December, and may close at short notice when a weather warning is issued.

Personal photography is permitted. Commercial shoots, filming with equipment, and photography in special costume require a written proposal filed in advance with the Historic Town Development Division at Inuyama City Hall. Group visits and school trips need a prior consultation by telephone.

The walk from the west exit of Meitetsu Inuyama Station takes about ten minutes. Limited express trains from Meitetsu Nagoya reach Inuyama in roughly 25 minutes, and the Wanmaru-kun community bus stops at Ekimae-dori, two minutes away. There is no parking at the site.

Elsewhere on the property the inner storehouse and the exhibition storehouse are rented out as event spaces, and a portable ramp can be provided for wheelchair access to them if arranged in advance with the Historic Town Development Division of the Inuyama City Board of Education on 0568-44-0354. No booking is needed to see the Former Isobe Family Storehouse itself.