Nakahama Family Residence Storage Shed

What the Nakahama Family Residence Storage Shed Is

Nakahama Family Residence Storage Shed (中濱家住宅物置, Nakahama-ke Jūtaku Monooki) is an early Showa-period single-storey outbuilding in Arimatsu, Midori Ward, Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, entered on the national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2008. It runs east from the main house that fronts the old Tōkaidō highway, then turns a right angle at the southeast corner of the plot. Its register number is 23-0280, and the entry covers 1 building.

The floor area is 37 square meters. The roof is a maneki-yane, an asymmetrical gable with one slope carried further down than the other, laid in Sangawara-buki tiles. The building sits on a footing of piled cobbles; the lower wall is clad in lapped weatherboarding held by notched vertical battens, and the band of wall above is plastered in black lime.

Arimatsu was founded in 1608 by the Owari domain on the Tōkaidō between the post towns of Narumi and Chiryū, and became known for tie-dyed cloth. City of Nagoya records place the height of the dyers' trade between the late Meiji period and the early Showa years. Nakahama Family Residence Storage Shed dates from that peak.

Why It Was Registered

Nakahama Family Residence Storage Shed was listed under the criterion for buildings that contribute to the historic landscape of the country. The most purely utilitarian building on the property earned its place on the register through the way it meets the street.

The reason lies in how the exterior was handled. The Agency for Cultural Affairs description notes that the street elevation is composed in the same manner as the board fence, unifying the design around the perimeter of the plot. Cobble footing, boarded lower wall, black-plastered band above: the sequence is identical in the shed and in the fence. To someone walking past, the fence gives way to a building and then returns to fence, and the boundary reads as one continuous horizontal band.

Sheds and stores are normally pushed to the back of a plot. Nakahama Family Residence Storage Shed shows its face to the highway without disturbing the street because the owners chose to match its appearance rather than hide its position. The Arimatsu townscape was selected in 2016 as an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings, and this building lies within the selected area.

What to Look For

Start with the roof. The maneki-yane of Nakahama Family Residence Storage Shed drops one slope much further than the other instead of falling evenly on both sides of the ridge. The short side faces the main house and the long side turns outward, which gives rainwater somewhere to go in the narrow gap between neighbouring structures.

The boarded lower wall repays a close look. Horizontal boards are lapped one over the next, then pinned by thin vertical battens cut with notches that seat over each lap. Because the battens repeat at even spacing, the horizontal lines of the boards and the vertical lines of the battens cross like a loose grid, and the shadows thrown by each lap line up along the whole run.

Below that, the footing is built of rounded cobbles laid without sorting them to a common size. The straight edge of the boarding above and the irregular outline of the stones below set each other off.

The turn in the plan is easy to miss. Nakahama Family Residence Storage Shed changes direction at a right angle on the southeast corner, tracing the edge of the plot so closely that from outside the bend of the building is hard to tell from the bend of a fence. Midori Ward records note that the plot next door to the east once held a dyeing works, so the ground beyond this shed was where the cloth itself was coloured.

Visiting

Nakahama Family Residence Storage Shed is privately owned and the interior is not open to visitors. The exterior can be seen from the public road along the old Tōkaidō, with no admission charge and no fixed hours.

The nearest station is Arimatsu on the Meitetsu Nagoya Main Line, about a 5-minute walk. Walk south from the station to the old highway and look to the east side of the main house. The point where the board fence becomes building shows most clearly from the footway on the north side of the road.

Photography from the public road is fine; please do not step onto the plot. The main house operates as a shibori shop, though its opening days and hours vary, so check in advance if you hope to go inside.