Nakasada Shoten Shoni Storehouse

Black boards, white frames, and a Western roof

Nakasada Shoten Shoni Storehouse is a single-storey earthen-walled storehouse of around 1927 in the town of Taketoyo, Aichi Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2016. It stands toward the south of the premises of Nakasada Shoten (中定商店昭二蔵, also written Nakasada Shōten Shōni-gura), a firm making soybean miso and tamari soy sauce.

Its floor area is 87 square meters, the smallest of the three registered buildings on the site. The walls are Dozo-zukuri, a timber frame encased in thick earth, and the roof is tiled. The roof structure, however, is not the Japanese framing you would expect above such walls. It is a king post truss, with a vertical member at the centre and diagonal braces running down to either side to carry the tie beam. A Japanese storehouse wall and a Western roof frame share the same building.

It was built for mashing and pressing. Mixing soybeans with koji, then squeezing the matured mash to draw off tamari, calls for a wide floor uninterrupted by posts. The Western truss in Nakasada Shoten Shoni Storehouse was a means to that clear span rather than a matter of taste.

The wall that earned the registration

Nakasada Shoten Shoni Storehouse was entered on the register of Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 29 November 2016 under registration number 23-0469, cited for its contribution to the historic landscape of the country. The Daigo Storehouse (23-0468) and the Shosan Storehouse (23-0470) on the same site were registered the same day.

The national record opens its description with the exterior wall. The boarding is sasarako shitami-ita: horizontal boards laid in overlapping courses and held down by slender vertical battens notched to sit over each lap. Rain runs off instead of working into the joints, which is why this finish is wrapped around the outside of an earthen wall. Here the boards are black.

Against that black, only the openings are white. Window surrounds are picked out in white lime plaster, so pale frames float on a dark field. The result reads differently from a storehouse plastered white all over and differently again from one simply boarded. This division of black and white is what places Nakasada Shoten Shoni Storehouse within the brewing streetscape of Taketoyo.

The record lists repairs between 1946 and 1965 and again in 1985. The building has been in use for more than ninety years, and the composition of the elevation has been kept through them.

What to look for

Standing outside, count the vertical battens. Sasarako boarding changes its character with their spacing: close together and the wall reads as fine texture, further apart and the horizontal lines of the boards take over. From a distance the wall of Nakasada Shoten Shoni Storehouse looks like a flat black plane, and only up close do the thin vertical lines resolve at even intervals.

The white plaster surrounds work better seen at an angle than head on. Plaster sits thicker than board, so each frame projects slightly. Depending on where the sun is, the frames throw shadows onto the boarding and the black wall stops looking flat.

Further north on the same site is the Daigo Storehouse of 1916, and at the southeast corner the Shosan Storehouse of around 1928. Nakasada Shoten Shoni Storehouse sits between them, and it is also the middle building in order of construction. The Daigo Storehouse has two floors and the Shosan Storehouse is a large single-storey shed, while this one is small and low, and the difference in size follows the difference in the work each was built to hold.

Visiting Nakasada Shoten Shoni Storehouse

Nakasada Shoten Shoni Storehouse is not a building you can walk into freely. The site is a working brewery, and interior access is by guided visit booked in advance. Call Nakasada Shoten on 0569-72-0030, weekdays between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Same-day requests are not accepted, and some dates cannot be accommodated.

A guided visit combines an explanation of the production process with a walk among the storehouses. The exterior can be seen from within the grounds and from the road in front. No official statement covers photography, so raise it when you telephone, along with any charge, since fees and conditions can change.

The Daigo Storehouse on the same site is open as the Jozo Densho-kan brewing museum, from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., admission free. The grounds close on Saturdays, Sundays, public holidays, the Obon period in August and the New Year period, and visits to Nakasada Shoten Shoni Storehouse follow the same calendar. A shop on the site, Hongura, sells miso and tamari soy sauce.

From Taketoyo Station on the JR Taketoyo Line, follow the railway north and turn right: a walk of 4 minutes. Chita-Taketoyo Station on the Meitetsu Kowa Line is 13 minutes away on foot. By car it is about 10 minutes from the Handa interchange on the Chita Peninsula Road, and parking is available for four cars and one coach.