Misegura

What a misegura is

A misegura is a shop built with the construction of a storehouse: thick walls sealed in Shikkui for fire resistance, while the street front stays open for trade.

The Nakamura Residence shopfront storehouse in Ibaraki Prefecture, built in 1913, is described as standing parallel to the street on the south of the plot, two storeys of timber facing south, Kirizuma-zukuri and entered from the eaves side under Sangawara-buki, with a lean-to canopy at the front and an open composition broken only by a Todobukuro at the west end, hinged shutters at the upstairs windows, and plastered outer walls faced with battened boarding.

The front is open almost throughout, yet the upper windows have shutters. With fire approaching, the building closes and becomes a storehouse again.

It joins the main house directly. The Nakamura Residence main house is described as built continuously behind it, single-storey and pantiled, its living rooms meeting the shop on the south and turning to Irimoya-zukuri on the north, and the entry values it for showing how shop and dwelling were arranged in the region.

A second name

Records also use another Japanese word for the same thing. The Muramatsu Residence merchant storehouse in Yamanashi Prefecture, built in 1873, is described as the shop storehouse from the founding of a lending business, its northern half a goods store and its southern half a shop below with living quarters above, its master carpenter known from a Munafuda.

Materials changed in the modern period. The Suzuki Residence shop storehouse in Ishikawa Prefecture, built in 1931, is described as two storeys of reinforced concrete with a flat roof, its walls plastered and its base faced in stone to imitate a storehouse, with a gabled parapet on the east as an accent, built after a great fire with fire in mind.

Rebuilding for fire resistance after a conflagration is a recurring pattern in Machiya districts. This building type, Nuriya-zukuri and Udatsu all come from the same motive.