Saito Family Residence New Storehouse

A Showa Storehouse Beside Its Older Neighbour

The Saito Family Residence New Storehouse (齋藤家住宅新蔵, Saitō-ke Jūtaku Shingura) is a 1936 plastered storehouse built against the north end of the middle storehouse on the west side of the Saito family compound in Funatsucho, Sabae City, Fukui Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on November 29, 2016, under number 18-0162. It is a 2-storey Dozo-zukuri building with a tiled roof and a building area of 84 square metres.

Like its neighbour, it has a north-south ridge. Its door sits in the easternmost bay of the south side, opening onto the work area in front of the middle storehouse of 1921. Rather than standing alone, the new building was placed to share the older storehouse's working space. It is the most recent of the eight registered Saito buildings.

Why It Was Registered

The Saito Family Residence New Storehouse was registered for contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes it as a storehouse on which great care was lavished in the exterior design.

The walls are treated in three bands. The base is made to look like stone cladding; above it, a tall band is worked to resemble coursed masonry; and from there to the eaves the wall is sealed in Shikkui plaster. It is an earthen storehouse dressed to look, from the waist down, like a stone building.

The middle storehouse next door had tried a stone-effect finish on one face only. Here the treatment wraps every side except the west and adds the masonry band on top. In 15 years, the family's taste in storehouse design had moved on.

What to Look For

Compare the west face with the rest. The west side alone keeps the traditional tall base of Shitami-itabari timber boarding, while the other faces carry the new stone-look finishes. As with the middle storehouse, each face was given its own treatment.

The stacked bands of base, masonry and plaster draw the eye upward and make the storehouse look more solid than it is. It shows a rural family of the early Showa years looking for a modern face for a thoroughly traditional building type.

Visiting

The new storehouse is privately owned, and Sabae City notes that the interior is not open. It stands on the west side of the grounds, north of the middle storehouse, and cannot be seen from the public road.

In practice it is not a building you can view on site. The history of the compound and directions are on the Saito Family Residence page.