Yoganji Temple Storehouse

A white-walled storehouse closing the northwest corner

Yoganji Temple Storehouse (陽願寺土蔵, Yōganji Dozō) is the two-storey plastered earthen-walled storehouse in the northwest corner of Yoganji in Honmachi, Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture; built around 1897, it was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 17 August 2020. It has a tiled roof with its ridge running east to west and a building area of 51 square metres.

At Yoganji you enter from the gate on the east, with the main hall at the center and the priests' quarters and shoin wing running north and then west. The storehouse sits beyond the end of that line, in the northwest corner, closing off the back of the precinct with a white wall.

Around 1897, when it was built, the rebuilding that followed the fire of 1852 was nearing completion with the main hall and bell tower.

Why it was registered: part of the precinct's backdrop

The Yoganji Storehouse was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency's description presents it as a storehouse that forms the scenery at the back of the precinct.

Of the nine buildings registered on the same day, only the priests' quarters and the storehouse were listed under this criterion. They were valued not as models of design like the main hall and shoin rooms, but as working buildings that support daily temple life and form part of the temple's setting.

The details in the description reveal that daily life. A tiled lean-to is attached to the east gable, with the doorway in its southern half and a pickle shed in the northern half. Storage for the preserved food that a large temple kitchen depended on was built right onto the storehouse.

What to look for: white plaster and battened weatherboards

The walls are finished in white lime plaster, with the lower part covered in sasarako-shitami boarding, a type of overlapping weatherboard held by notched vertical battens. In the wet Hokuriku climate the boards protect the plaster, and their dark band steadies the white wall above.

Even the gable walls are plastered over, yet the shapes of the purlins carrying the roof are left standing out in relief on the surface. Showing where the structure lies beneath the plaster relieves what would otherwise be a blank wall.

Inside, gently curved beams carry short posts that support the ridge beam and purlins. Using beams left close to the shape of the tree is a plain, practical way of framing shared with Meiji-era farmhouses and storehouses.

Visiting the Yoganji Storehouse

The Yoganji Storehouse is used for the temple's storage and its interior is not open. It is not on the route of either the regular paid visit or the reserved special visit.

It stands at the far northwest of the grounds, where the main hall and shoin buildings hide it from the gate on the east. How much of the exterior you can see depends on where visitors are allowed, so if you want to see it, check with the temple office, open 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.