Former Hongo Residence Bunko-gura: A Storehouse Built Inside Another Building
Walk west through the main house of the former Hongo Residence and the floor does not stop at an outside wall. It continues into a long east-west corridor building, and inside that corridor stands a two-storey earthen-walled storehouse, 16.4 metres along its ridge, with a small forehall attached at its eastern end.
A storehouse under a roof, inside a house. In the southern inland districts of Akita this arrangement has a name: uchigura, the interior storehouse. The outer building that wraps it is called the saya, a word that also means the scabbard of a sword.
The Hongo family's document storehouse, the bunko-gura, is the oldest surviving structure on the property. Work began in Keio 3 (1867), in the final months of Tokugawa rule, and finished in Meiji 2 (1869). It covers 263 square metres and is roofed, like the rest of the complex, in sheet iron.
Why Build a Building Around a Building
The logic is climatic before it is anything else. Snow in the Yokote Basin accumulates deeply and lingers, and an earthen-walled storehouse standing in the open takes the full weight of it against plaster that cracks and absorbs water. Sheathing the storehouse solves that. It also means the family could reach its records, textiles and lacquerware in February without stepping outside.
What began as practical construction turned into display. Because the storehouse now sat indoors, its exposed timbers became furnishing rather than fabric, and wealthy households in this region invested accordingly. In the Hongo storehouse the columns were wiped with lacquer, giving them a depth of colour that no amount of planing produces on bare wood. The same impulse produced the celebrated interior storehouses of Masuda in nearby Yokote City, where a whole streetscape of them survives.
The Agency for Cultural Affairs registered the building on 29 November 2016 as number 05-0214, under the criterion covering structures that would be difficult to reproduce. That criterion is the strictest reading of the three available, and it points at two things at once: the craft knowledge embodied in a thick-walled dozo of this scale, and the rarity of one whose construction date is documented. The names of the two master craftsmen survive as well, Kumagai Torazo and Aoki Denzo.
Seeing It
The interior of the storehouse is not on the standard free admission route. It can be seen on the paid guided tour operated by a local company, which also opens the interior storehouses of the neighbouring Arakawa and Kitajima houses. Three uchigura from three landlord families, within a few minutes' walk of one another, make the tour worth the fee for anyone with an interest in vernacular construction.
On the tour, a few things are worth watching for. The junction where the sheath building meets the main house tells you how the two were planned together rather than one being added later. The forehall on the east face marks the ceremonial approach to the storehouse doors, a threshold space rather than a passage. And the sheer length of the storehouse, more than sixteen metres, is easier to register from inside the sheath than from any exterior view, because there is no exterior view: the building has been hidden by design for over a century and a half.
The Hongo family's papers were the reason this building existed. A landholding of roughly 345 hectares at its peak, tenancy agreements, shipping insurance for river cargo, the accounts of a company operating across the basin: all of it had to be kept dry, secure and reachable through an Akita winter.
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Q&A
- What exactly is an uchigura?
- It is a storehouse enclosed within an outer building, so that it is entered from inside the house rather than from the yard. The form developed in heavy-snow regions of northern Japan and is especially associated with the southern inland part of Akita Prefecture.
- Can I see the inside of the storehouse?
- Access to the storehouse interior is through the paid guided tour rather than general admission. Tours run during the public opening season, between roughly 9:30 and 14:30 start times, and should be arranged in advance with the operator.
- How old is it compared with the rest of the site?
- It is the earliest of the four registered buildings by a wide margin. The storehouse dates from 1869, the main house from 1900, the miso storehouse from 1921 and the Western-style wing from 1928. The grounds therefore hold four distinct construction periods within a single family compound.
- Why is the roof made of sheet iron rather than tile?
- Sheet iron sheds snow more readily than tile and weighs far less, which matters where accumulation is measured in metres. Re-roofing older buildings in metal was common across snow country, and all four registered structures here carry it.
- Is the reading of the name Bunko-gura or Bunkogura?
- Daisen City gives the reading as bunkogura, while the national database records bunkokura. Both refer to the same building; the variation is a matter of how the compound is voiced.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Hongo Residence Bunko-gura (Kyu Hongo-ke Jutaku Bunkogura) |
|---|---|
| Location | 19 Nishinaka-kamimachi, Kakumagawa-cho, Daisen City, Akita Prefecture |
| Category | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structures) |
| Registration date | 29 November 2016 (85th round of registration) |
| Registration number | 05-0214 |
| Registration criterion | Difficult to reproduce |
| Date of construction | Meiji 2 (1869); begun Keio 3 (1867) |
| Structure | Earthen-walled storehouse construction, two storeys, sheet iron roof |
| Building area | 263 square metres |
| Ridge length of storehouse | 16.4 metres |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Craftsmen | Kumagai Torazo and Aoki Denzo |
| Owner | Daisen City |
| Public access | Grounds and main house open late April to mid-November, free of charge. Storehouse interior by paid guided tour. |
| Enquiries | Cultural Properties Division, Daisen City (Tel. 0187-63-8972) |
References
- National Database of Designated Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Former Hongo Residence Bunko-gura
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00011238
- Daisen City: Registered Tangible Cultural Property, Former Hongo Residence
- https://www.city.daisen.lg.jp/archive/contents-11562
- Daisen City: Public Opening of the Former Hongo Residence
- https://www.city.daisen.lg.jp/archive/contents-9764
Last verified: 2026.07.22