Aizanso Kura Zashiki

About the Aizanso Kura Zashiki

The Aizanso Kura Zashiki (愛山荘蔵座敷, Aizansō Kura-zashiki) is a two-storey earthen storehouse fitted out as a reception room, built in 1928 and linked by a covered corridor to the southwest side of the main house at Aizanso in Wakatake-cho, Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture. It was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2017.

A kura zashiki is a fireproof Dozo-zukuri storehouse whose interior has been finished as a formal room for receiving guests. This one measures 8.7 metres by 5.9 metres, has a tiled roof and a building area of 51 square metres, and is entered through a porch built as a lean-to on its north side. The ground floor is the reception room.

The corridor from the main house passes through the Aizanso Kura Zashiki and carries on to the stone storehouse at the southern tip of the site. The tea house stands just to the east, so the building sits at the hinge of the tea-ceremony spaces laid out around 1928.

Why it was registered

The Aizanso Kura Zashiki was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape, and the national description calls it a good example of the modern kura zashiki.

Instead of lime plaster, the outer walls are finished in Araidashi, a mortar with the surface washed back to expose the aggregate, and scored with joint lines. The eaves are carried on steel Mochiokuri brackets decorated with a scroll motif. The storehouse form is traditional, but the materials, mortar and steel, belong to the early Showa years.

Inside, the ground-floor room is finished in hinoki cypress. A tough shell outside and a refined room inside is what makes a kura zashiki appealing, and this one shows the type in its twentieth-century form.

What to look for

The steel brackets

The brackets under the eaves are the detail most people remember. Brackets like these are normally carved from wood; here they are steel, finished with a scroll at the tip, and they are slimmer than timber ones would need to be.

The washed-aggregate walls

Look at the wall surface in raking light and the exposed grit and scored joints stand out clearly. It is a very different texture from the smooth white plaster of the first and second storehouses on the west side of the site.

The corridor

One covered corridor runs from the main house to the stone storehouse, and the Aizanso Kura Zashiki sits on it. The plan makes clear that this storehouse was used as part of the house, not as an outbuilding.

Seeing it

The official website does not say how the interior of the Aizanso Kura Zashiki is currently used. If you want to see the room, contact the restaurant beforehand.

The exterior can be seen from the garden. From the southwest part of the garden you can take in the north porch, the washed-aggregate walls and the steel-bracketed eaves together. Directions and opening hours are on the Aizanso page.