Former Nara Family Residence, South America Storehouse

Rice, the measure of a great farming house

Wealth on the Nara estate was counted in rice, and rice needed housing. The south rice storehouse, built in 1893 (Meiji 26), sits in the northwest of the grounds at Kanaashi Koizumi in northern Akita City. It is an earthen-walled storehouse on a north–south axis, five and a half ken along the front by three and a half deep, about 117 square meters, with a lean-to porch two and a half ken wide across its east front. A gabled "placed roof" (okiyane) of steel sheet covers it.

What sets this building apart is that it does not stand alone. Its roof was built continuous with that of the north rice storehouse next to it, so the two read as a single long range. The front doorway has a pair of swinging earthen doors, the south doorway a set of sliding board doors, and two windows open at the rear. The walls are white lime plaster throughout.

A pair built to hold a harvest

The Nara were among the leading farming families of Akita, and a household on that scale brought in far more rice than it consumed. Two storehouses given over to grain, joined under one roofline, are the physical measure of that yield. The south storehouse came first, in 1893; the north storehouse followed in 1908 (Meiji 41), extending the range and raising the site's total storage capacity.

When the estate's seven annexes were entered on the national register of tangible cultural properties in 2006, they were valued for their contribution to the historic landscape, and the paired rice storehouses are central to that reading. Few designated farmhouses retain their working outbuildings so fully. The continuous rice range shows, in built form, how a wealthy agricultural household managed the crop that underwrote everything else.

What to look for on a visit

The former Nara residence is open as an annex of the Akita Prefectural Museum, and admission is free. The two rice storehouses are best seen together: stand back far enough to take in the single unbroken roofline, then trace where the south storehouse gives way to the north. At close range, the swinging earthen doors on the east front and the white plaster walls repay attention. Because museum staff interpret the grounds and the whole site is publicly owned, the paired storehouses can be read alongside the main house and the other annexes in one visit, showing how the estate handled its most important resource.