What zashiki-gura means
A zashiki-gura is a clay-walled storehouse fitted inside with a reception room complete with an alcove. Storehouses were built to protect household goods and merchandise from fire, and a zashiki-gura turned that solidity to use as a place for entertaining guests or for family living. The room inside is often called a kura-zashiki, a storehouse reception room.
In fire-prone towns, receiving important guests in a fireproof storehouse room also displayed a family's wealth and standing. The exterior usually looks like any other storehouse, and only inside does a finely finished reception room appear.
Reading the records and the building
Records use zashiki-gura for the building type and kura-zashiki for the room within, though usage overlaps. The rear storehouse of the former Nagashima family in Kumagaya, Saitama, is a two-storey stone zashiki-gura facing south behind the main house, with two rooms downstairs, three upstairs and storage beneath the floor, described as a storehouse combining practicality and design. The main storehouse of the Otani family in Fukaya, Saitama, has a twelve-mat kura-zashiki on its upper floor, noted as simple. The stone storehouse of Aizanso in Fukui is recorded as linked by a corridor to the kura-zashiki, the term here naming a building.
Articles should follow whichever word the record uses and make clear whether the whole building or a room inside it is meant. On site, look for an alcove, a built-in desk or tatami rooms inside the storehouse.
References
- 旧長島家住宅裏蔵｜国指定文化財等データベース（文化庁）
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00014741
- 大谷家住宅本蔵｜国指定文化財等データベース（文化庁）
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00003836
- 愛山荘石蔵｜国指定文化財等データベース（文化庁）
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00011682
Last verified: 2026.09.26