Suzuzen

What Is Suzuzen?

Suzuzen (鈴善) is the premises of Suzuzen Lacquerware Store (鈴善漆器店, Suzuzen Shikkiten), a wholesaler of Aizu lacquerware founded in 1832 in Chuo 1-chome, Aizuwakamatsu City, Fukushima Prefecture, whose seven buildings dating from the late Edo period to the early Showa period were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2021.

According to the company's own history, the business began as a purveyor of lacquerware to the Matsudaira lords of the Aizu domain, and the family traded under the name Suzukiya Shikkiten, a shop curtain bestowed by the domain lord. After the Meiji Restoration the firm exported lacquerware, mass-produced lacquered ikō (folding kimono racks) and later experimented with synthetic resin as a base for lacquer. Suzuzen left the wholesale trade in 2018, and the following year it opened the house and storehouses to the public as the Aizu-nuri Densho-kan, a small museum of Aizu lacquer.

The shop faces the street to the north, and the parlors and storehouses run back behind it. Commerce and the Suzuki family's household once shared this one plot, and the seven registered buildings keep that arrangement legible.

The Seven Registered Buildings of Suzuzen

All seven Suzuzen buildings were entered on the national register on October 14, 2021, under registration numbers 07-0248 through 07-0254. Each was registered under the same criterion, as a building that contributes to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database gives the following dates and details.

• Store: early Showa period. Two-story timber building, tiled roof, building area 116 m². Shop and office
• Kurazashiki (storehouse parlor): 1929. Two-story earthen storehouse, tiled roof, 147 m². Workroom and tatami rooms on the ground floor
• Nakazashiki (middle parlor): 1929. Single-story timber building, tiled roof, 116 m². Parlors and entrance around a courtyard
• Chozogura (storage storehouse): 1919. Two-story earthen storehouse, tiled roof, 55 m². Originally for household goods
• Komesumigura (rice and charcoal storehouse): 1922. Two-story earthen storehouse, tiled roof, 40 m². Originally for rice and charcoal
• Monookigura (utility storehouse): late Edo period, moved here around 1938. Two-story earthen storehouse, tiled roof, 55 m². Originally a display storehouse for stock
• Nizukurigura (packing storehouse): early Showa period. Single-story earthen storehouse, tiled roof, 49 m². Originally used for packing goods

The oldest is the Monookigura, a late Edo storehouse relocated to the site around 1938. The Chozogura followed in 1919 and the Komesumigura in 1922; the Kurazashiki and Nakazashiki date to 1929, and the store and the Nizukurigura belong to the early Showa years (1926 to 1945). The Agency's notes describe the Komesumigura and Monookigura as part of an expansion of the premises, evidence of how well the family business was doing in the early Showa period.

Aizuwakamatsu City had already recognized the complex in fiscal 2001, listing Suzuzen Lacquerware Store as No. 21 among its designated historic landscape buildings. The city describes earthen storehouses from the Meiji and Taisho periods together with a modern shop built in 1930, a corner where red roof tiles and white walls survive amid the newer streetscape around Chuo-dori.

Suzuzen's own website says that many of the storehouses were built elsewhere in the city during the Taisho period and moved onto the site by hikiya, the Japanese practice of shifting a building whole. The Agency's notes mention relocation only for the Monookigura, so the origins of the other storehouses cannot be confirmed from primary sources.

How the Suzuzen Premises Are Laid Out

The Suzuzen Store stands on the street with its front to the north. The Kurazashiki adjoins it on the west, and the Nakazashiki touches both, lying south of the store and east of the Kurazashiki. The Nakazashiki links two tatami rooms with a corridor to enclose a small courtyard, and it also holds the entrance hall and the stair up to the store's second floor. Shop, parlors and storehouse meet at this one point.

Along the street in the northeast corner, the Nizukurigura runs east to west. The Monookigura stands at the east edge of the site, the Chozogura east of the garden in the southwest corner, and the Komesumigura in the southeast corner, which carries a separate lot number, 141. Every storehouse except the Nizukurigura has its ridge running north to south; only the packing storehouse turns its long side to the street.

All the Suzuzen storehouses have gabled (Kirizuma-zukuri) roofs of Sangawara-buki pantiles, with white Shikkui plaster carried up over the eaves in the thick band called Hachimaki. The Kurazashiki, Chozogura and Nizukurigura are roofed in locally made red tiles. Inside the Chozogura, Komesumigura and Nizukurigura, the roofs rest on Western-style Truss framing, a modern structure hidden behind traditional earthen walls. Details of each building are on its own page.

Visiting Suzuzen

The Suzuzen premises are open to the public as the Aizu-nuri Densho-kan Suzuzen, run by Suzuzen Inc. The official website gives opening hours of 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., closed only on New Year's Day (checked October 2026). The company profile page also lists closures as irregular, so a phone call ahead is sensible if you are traveling far. The Aizuwakamatsu Tourism Bureau lists admission as free.

Inside, the site is divided into themed spaces: the Densho-gura, with displays on the history and techniques of Aizu lacquer and craftsmen's tools; the Bijutsu-gura, showing works by artists linked to Aizu; the Taiken-gura, where you can try maki-e decoration; and two shops selling lacquerware and local sake. Upstairs in the Densho-gura, a tatami meeting room and a reception room used for shareholders' meetings in the early Showa period are open to view. The maki-e workshop needs a booking and at least two people, with prices starting at 3,500 yen for a small plate (official website, updated April 2026). The website names these spaces by function and does not say which of the seven registered buildings each occupies. It also says nothing about photography, so ask the staff before taking pictures indoors.

Suzuzen is about a 10-minute walk or a 6-minute drive from JR Aizu-Wakamatsu Station, and about 15 minutes on foot from Nanokamachi Station. From the Aizuwakamatsu Interchange on the Ban-etsu Expressway it is roughly 10 minutes by car. By local bus, get off at Yubinkyoku-mae, about a minute's walk away. There is a free car park on site with room for 4 large buses and about 25 cars.