Satakita Storehouse

A Storehouse Built by Two Different Trades

Sataki Dozo (佐滝土蔵, さたきどぞう, also written Sataki Dozō) is a two-storey clay-walled storehouse at Yokamachi 49 in Sannohe Town, Aomori Prefecture, completed in 1912 (Taisho 1) and entered on the national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 15 February 2000. It stands towards the rear of the Sato family plot, behind the shop that faces the street.

An ink inscription on the structural timber fixes the completion date to the first year of Taisho, an era that began in late July 1912 and so gives the building a window of only five months. The same inscription records something more interesting than a date.

The carpenter was local. The plasterer came from Morioka.

That division is the single most useful fact about this building. Morioka lies some eighty kilometres to the south as the crow flies, capital of the old Nanbu domain and the largest centre of skilled trades within reach of Sannohe. Bringing a plasterer that distance in 1912 meant paying travel, lodging and the wages of a specialist while a perfectly competent local man went unhired. The Sato family did it deliberately, and the walls explain why.

Three Finishes on One Wall

The building covers 41 square metres, slightly larger than the Bunko-gura of 1893 that stands nearby. The roof is sangawara-buki, laid with pantiles, and carries large ridge-end ornaments (onigawara) of a scale out of proportion to the modest footprint. Ridge ornaments were where a merchant house allowed itself to be seen spending money.

The walls are where the Morioka plasterer earned his fee. The Agency for Cultural Affairs record divides the exterior into three zones, each finished differently.

• The eaves surround and the window and door openings are finished in black lime plaster
• The upper wall surface is finished in white lime plaster
• The lower wall surface is namako-kabe

Namako-kabe means sea-cucumber wall. Square tiles are fixed to the wall face and set on the diagonal, and the joints between them are built up in white plaster to a half-round profile, producing a raised diamond lattice across the surface. The name comes from the cross-section of those joints. The technique waterproofs the vulnerable lower wall where rain splashes back from the ground, and it does so while creating one of the most immediately recognisable patterns in Japanese vernacular building.

It is also, in this location, out of place. Sannohe Town's own description notes that namako-kabe is not found in the surrounding area. The technique is strongly associated with the merchant towns of the Pacific and Inland Sea coasts, and inland northern Honshu had little tradition of it. Whoever specified this wall was importing a look as well as a craftsman.

Stand back far enough to take in all three zones at once and the logic becomes clear: dark frame, pale field, patterned base. The building reads as a composition rather than as a box that happens to be plastered.

Why It Is on the Register

Sataki Dozo is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, not a designated one. Registration came in the twenty-second round of the system on 15 February 2000, gazetted on 2 March 2000, under registration number 02-0013. Its stated criterion is that it is difficult to reproduce (再現することが容易でないもの).

Applied here, the criterion is close to literal. Black lime plaster requires pigment worked into the finish coat and then polished; white lime plaster over a large uninterrupted field shows every trowel mark; namako-kabe demands that dozens of tiles be aligned to a true diagonal grid and that the raised joints be run by hand to a consistent profile without a break. A plasterer capable of all three, working to this standard, was worth importing from Morioka in 1912 and would be difficult to commission now.

The Sato family owned five buildings that eventually entered the register, and the two storehouses were both registered under this craftsmanship criterion. The shop, the villa and the gate were registered instead as models of design. The distinction is not about quality; it is about which argument the building makes.

Visiting the Site

Aomori Prefecture records Sataki Dozo as closed to the public (非公開). It sits at the back of a private plot, and the storehouse is not open for inspection. Sannohe Town asks that anyone wishing to see the Sato family buildings contact the Board of Education in advance on 0179-20-1157. Photography arrangements are not published, so raise the question when you make contact.

Sataki Honten, the concrete shop on the street frontage of the same plot, is listed by the prefecture as open, and it is the practical starting point for understanding the group. From the street the storehouses are behind it.

Sannohe Station on the Aoimori Railway is the nearest rail access, though the station is in neighbouring Nanbu Town and the Yokamachi commercial street is about ten minutes away by car. A taxi operator is based at Yokamachi 54-3. The town also runs a community bus at a flat 100 yen fare. Drivers should allow around fifty minutes from the Hachinohe interchange on the Tohoku Expressway.