The Oldest Building on the Plot
The Fujita Family Residence Storehouse (藤田家住宅土蔵, Fujita-ke Jūtaku Dozō) is a two-storey earthen-walled storehouse at 46-1 Nibanchō in Shirakawa City, Fukushima Prefecture, built in the closing decades of the Edo period between roughly 1830 and 1868 and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure) on 15 August 2024.
Three Fujita buildings were registered together on that date. This one predates the other two by half a century or more. The shop and main house on the street belong to the early Taishō period, the zashiki-gura beside it to 1908, and this storehouse to the last years of the Tokugawa shogunate, which puts its construction close to the founding of the family business itself around 1830. It stands furthest back, west of the zashiki-gura, at the north-western edge of the site.
Its job was plain. This was the kazai-gura, the storehouse for household goods rather than for merchandise or for entertaining. Nothing about the plan complicates that. Each floor is a single board-floored room, with a staircase tucked into the north-west corner. The doorway is set in the eastern gable end, so entry is on the short face, and the building meets a cut-stone plinth of dressed masonry at the base. Building area is 55 square metres, the smallest of the three.
The exterior is plaster-finished, with a hachimaki band running around the walls at eaves level, matching the treatment on the zashiki-gura next door. On the west gable, two windows with small pent roofs are set one above the other, upper and lower. Those windows are worth looking at, because they are what the register is really pointing to.
A Roof Frame Worth Looking Up At
The registration criterion applied here is contribution to the historic landscape of the country, the same criterion used for the shop on the street. The Agency's commentary explains where that contribution lies: the west gable, with its paired pent-roofed windows, shapes the appearance of the north-western part of the site. This is a building assessed for how it sits in a view, not for decorative quality. Registration number 07-0286, granted in the 107th round on 15 August 2024.
The structural interest is overhead. The roof frame uses nobori-bari, rising beams that follow the slope of the roof, held between horizontal tsunagi-bari tie beams that sandwich them. It is a robust and slightly old-fashioned way of building a storehouse roof, and because the upper floor is a single undivided room, the whole assembly is visible from below once you are inside.
The Agency's commentary describes this roof frame with the word chūko. In descriptions of Japanese building fabric the term usually indicates reused older timber, members salvaged from an earlier structure and worked into a new one, which was ordinary practice and left recognisable traces such as redundant mortises. The commentary is too compressed for the reading to be certain, and anyone wanting to rely on the point should check the survey report or ask at the museum.
The register also notes alterations made around 1908, the same year the zashiki-gura went up. That is a useful piece of information. It suggests the Fujita family carried out a single campaign of work across the rear of the plot: building the new parlour storehouse, and reworking the old goods storehouse behind it at the same time, so the two would sit together.
One discrepancy in the primary source should be flagged rather than smoothed over. The structured field of the national database records the roof as clad in iron plate, while the descriptive commentary on the same record describes it as copper plate. Both statements come from the Agency for Cultural Affairs. The tabulated data has been followed for the specification given below, but the two do not agree, and the point is unresolved here.
From Warehouse to Gallery
The building has been converted into an exhibition gallery, and that is how a visitor now meets it.
The Fujita Education Promotion Foundation opened the Fujita Memorial Museum in Nanko Park in 1967 and had it registered under the Museum Act in 1979. The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake damaged the building and closed the museum. In April 2021 it reopened on the Fujita plot in Nibanchō, using both storehouses: the zashiki-gura as the principal display space, and this dozō, refitted as a gallery exhibition room, alongside it. The two are marketed together under the name Fujiya-gura.
A late-Edo storehouse makes a surprisingly good gallery. Thick earthen walls give slow, stable temperature and humidity, which is exactly what hanging scrolls need, and the single undivided room offers uninterrupted wall on all four sides. The collection shown across the two buildings centres on the Shirakawa domain lord Matsudaira Sadanobu, on the painter Tani Bunchō who worked for him, and on the Nihonga painter Yūki Somei, a Tokyo Fine Arts School professor who knew the Shirakawa Fujita family. Part of the site also operates as a rental gallery.
Practical details are the same as for the rest of the museum. Open 10:00 to 16:00. Closed for the winter across January, February and March, and during exhibition changeovers, so check the museum's site before making the trip. Admission is 500 yen for adults and 300 yen for high school and university students during special exhibitions, or 300 yen and 100 yen for the standing display, with junior high school students and younger free. Photography terms are not published; ask at the desk.
Shirakawa Station on the Tōhoku Main Line lies about 1.2 kilometres away, roughly fifteen minutes on foot, and Shin-Shirakawa Station on the Tōhoku Shinkansen about 1.6 kilometres. Since the storehouse sits at the back of the plot, the sequence that makes most sense is to look at the glazed shopfront on the old Ōshū Kaidō first, then walk in past the zashiki-gura, and finish here with the oldest building of the three.
A warning about searching for this property by name. A different registered building also called Fujita Family Residence Storehouse, using the identical characters 藤田家住宅土蔵, stands in Kamigyō-ku in Kyoto. It was registered in 2015, has a building area of 14 square metres, and belongs to an unrelated family. Search results mentioning Yamana-chō or Horikawa-dōri refer to that Kyoto property, not to this one in Fukushima.
- 📍 Plan Your Visit to Fukushima
- Find tours, activities & transport passes near Fujita Family Residence Storehouse
- [ Aizu-Wakamatsu Castle & Ouchi-juku Village Tours ]
Q&A
- How old is the Fujita Family Residence Storehouse in Shirakawa?
- The national register places its construction in the late Edo period, roughly between 1830 and 1868, with alterations made around 1908. It is the oldest of the three Fujita buildings at 46-1 Nibanchō, predating the 1908 zashiki-gura and the early Taishō shop and main house.
- Can visitors enter the Fujita Family Residence Storehouse?
- Yes. It was refitted as a gallery exhibition room and forms part of the Fujita Memorial Museum, which reopened on this site in April 2021. Opening hours are 10:00 to 16:00, and it closes from January through March and during exhibition changeovers.
- Why was the Fujita Family Residence Storehouse registered as a cultural property?
- It was registered on 15 August 2024 under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the country, with registration number 07-0286. The Agency for Cultural Affairs points to the west gable, where two windows with small pent roofs are set one above the other, as shaping the appearance of the north-western part of the site.
- What should I look for inside the Fujita Family Residence Storehouse?
- Look up. Each floor is a single board-floored room, so the roof frame is visible, built with rising nobori-bari beams held between horizontal tie beams. The staircase sits in the north-west corner and the doorway is in the eastern gable end.
- Is the Fujita Family Residence Storehouse in Shirakawa the same as the one in Kyoto?
- No. A separate registered property with an identical Japanese name stands in Kamigyō-ku, Kyoto, registered in 2015 with a building area of 14 square metres. The Shirakawa storehouse in Fukushima Prefecture was registered in 2024 and has a building area of 55 square metres. The two are unconnected.
Basic Information
| Name | Fujita Family Residence Storehouse (藤田家住宅土蔵) |
|---|---|
| Location | 46-1 Nibanchō, Shirakawa City, Fukushima Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure); registration number 07-0286, 107th round; criterion: contribution to the historic landscape |
| Year Designated | 15 August 2024 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Dozō construction, two storeys; iron plate roof per the database field, described as copper plate in the accompanying commentary; building area 55 square metres |
| Owner | Fujita Education Promotion Foundation (public interest incorporated foundation) |
| Public Access | Open as a gallery of the Fujita Memorial Museum, 10:00 to 16:00; closed January to March and during exhibition changeovers |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs — Fujita Family Residence Storehouse
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00015000
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs — Fujita Family Residence Zashiki-Gura
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00014999
- Fujita Memorial Museum — About the Museum
- https://fujitakinenhakubutsukan.amebaownd.com/pages/4813846/profile
- Fujita Memorial Museum — Visitor Information
- https://fujitakinenhakubutsukan.amebaownd.com/pages/4813847/page_201603171106
- City of Shirakawa — Fujiya Building Group
- https://www.city.shirakawa.fukushima.jp/page/page004404.html
Last verified: 2026.08.25