Abe Family Residence Silkworm Storehouse

About the Abe Family Residence Silkworm Storehouse

The Abe Family Residence Silkworm Storehouse (阿部家住宅蚕蔵, Abe-ke Jūtaku Kaikogura) is a two-storey clay-walled dozo storehouse built in the middle of the Meiji era (1868 to 1912) on the street edge of the Abe family estate in Kayaba, Sasagino, Fukushima City, Fukushima Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2008.

The Abe Family Residence Silkworm Storehouse measures 7.9 by 5.4 metres, a building area of 43 m². Its gabled roof is laid with sangawara pantiles, and a sheet-metal eave (Hisashi) shelters the west side.

Cocoons Below, Workers Above

The Agency for Cultural Affairs records that the ground floor was used to store silk cocoons and the upper floor as rooms for household workers. Despite the name, this was not a room for rearing silkworms but a store for the harvested cocoons.

Cocoons kept in bulk, with live-in staff sleeping above them, point to a household involved in silk production or the cocoon trade and large enough to employ hired hands. No source describing the Abe family's business in detail was found.

The Abe Family Residence Silkworm Storehouse was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. Standing on the street front, it is the building that sets the impression of the estate from the road.

Red Tiles and Namako Walls

The agency's description singles out the red roof tiles. Laid over white Shikkui plaster walls, they stand apart from the sheet-metal and dark tiled roofs of the other storehouses.

The lower walls are faced with Namako-kabe: square flat tiles set in a grid, the joints raised in rounded ridges of plaster. The facing protects the clay wall from rain splash and damp, and puts a grey-and-white lattice at the eye level of anyone walking by.

There are four doors: two on the west side and one each on the south and north. That is more than on any other storehouse here, perhaps so that cocoons and people used separate entrances. The east face, towards the road, has none.

Seeing the Abe Family Residence Silkworm Storehouse

The Abe Family Residence Silkworm Storehouse belongs to a private home and its interior is not open. Fukushima Prefecture's heritage list also states that interior photography is not permitted.

Because it faces the street, it is the easiest of the nine buildings to see. The red tiles show best from across the road, and the namako lattice close up at eye level. Please photograph only from the public road. Directions are on the Abe Family Residence page.