Yabuki Family Residence Zashiki Storehouse and Buddhist Altar Room

About the Yabuki Family Residence Zashiki Storehouse and Buddhist Altar Room

The Yabuki Family Residence Zashiki Storehouse and Buddhist Altar Room (矢吹家住宅座敷蔵及び仏間, Yabuki-ke Jūtaku Zashikigura oyobi Butsuma) is a mid-Meiji clay-walled storehouse containing reception rooms, with a Buddhist altar room added in the early Showa era (1926 to 1945), standing northwest of the main house on the Yabuki family estate in Narukawa, Fukushima City, Fukushima Prefecture. It was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2015.

The Yabuki Family Residence Zashiki Storehouse and Buddhist Altar Room is a clay-walled building of two storeys with a single-storey part: the two-storey Zashiki-gura and the single-storey altar room attached to it. It is roofed in tile and sheet metal, with a building area of 97 m². The storehouse portion is the oldest of all eleven registered parts of the estate.

Reception Rooms Inside a Storehouse

A zashiki-gura is a storehouse fitted out with formal tatami rooms. In the Yabuki Family Residence Zashiki Storehouse and Buddhist Altar Room, the ground floor of the storehouse holds two such rooms, and the northern one has carefully refined decorative fittings of alcove and shelves.

Rooms walled in thick clay are well protected from fire, so zashiki-gura were often used to receive important guests or to keep a family's treasures close at hand. How the Yabuki used theirs is not on record, but by the mid-Meiji years the household already had a properly furnished room inside its storehouse.

An Altar Room Built Like a Temple Hall

The altar room added in the early Showa era is built like a small Buddhist hall. It has a temple-style Shumidan dais, a coved coffered ceiling (Gō-tenjō) and cusped bell-shaped windows (Katōmado). Outside, the eaves are carried on fan rafters, which radiate like the ribs of a folding fan, a technique usually found in temple architecture.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs calls the altar room of the Yabuki Family Residence Zashiki Storehouse and Buddhist Altar Room exceptional for a domestic altar room. A dais, a coved coffered ceiling, cusped windows and fan rafters together are rarely found in a private house.

The Yabuki Family Residence Zashiki Storehouse and Buddhist Altar Room was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property for its contribution to the historic landscape. Two parts of very different dates, a Meiji storehouse and a Showa altar room, are registered as one.

Seeing the Yabuki Family Residence Zashiki Storehouse and Buddhist Altar Room

The interior of the Yabuki Family Residence Zashiki Storehouse and Buddhist Altar Room is not open. The dais and coved ceiling are interior features and cannot be seen from outside (checked October 2026).

The fan-rafter eaves are on the exterior, but the Yabuki Family Residence Zashiki Storehouse and Buddhist Altar Room stands in the northwest corner of the estate, the farthest point from the street on the east. It is probably difficult to see from the road. Directions are on the Yabuki Family Residence page.