Former Aikawa Family Residence Storehouse

The hardware warehouse of 1844

The Former Aikawa Family Residence Storehouse (旧相川家住宅土蔵, Kyū Aikawa-ke Jūtaku Dozō) is a hardware warehouse built in 1844 in Sankocho, Isesaki City, Gunma Prefecture, and it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on August 6, 2025. The Aikawa family stored its stock of hardware here; today it serves as an exhibition hall of the Aikawa Archaeological Museum.

The Former Aikawa Family Residence Storehouse is a two-storey Dozo-zukuri building with a building area of 54 square metres, under a gabled roof (Kirizuma-zukuri) of interlocking pan tiles that runs east to west. The museum gives its plan as 2.5 ken by 7 ken. It stands north of the main house, and a doorway toward the west end of its south wall links it to the west end of the main house's north side.

Built seven years after the main house, it holds the deepest position in a merchant's layout that runs without a break from shop to home to warehouse.

Why it was registered

The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that the long exterior of the Former Aikawa Family Residence Storehouse defines the northern side of the property. The east-west storehouse closes off the back of the site with a single stretch of white wall. It was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape of the country.

Inside, each floor is one plank-floored room. The roof is framed with inclined nobori-bari beams tied together by horizontal ties (tsunagi-bari), which lets the upper floor span a single open room with no posts down the middle. For a warehouse piled with metal goods, a floor free of columns would have been practical.

Openings are kept to a minimum. Windows appear only in the east gable and on the south side of the upper floor, and each is closed by a door finished in Shikkui lime plaster. In a fire, such doors were shut and sealed with mud, the basic discipline of any storehouse. Combined with the direct link to the main house, the building shows how a merchant's warehouse actually worked.

What to look for

The Former Aikawa Family Residence Storehouse rewards attention inside and out. Outside, follow the long wall stretching across the north of the property, then look at the east gable with its window and plastered door. It is the expanse of blank wall, pierced so rarely, that gives the building its weight.

Inside is the museum's permanent gallery of material collected by Aikawa Shiga, mostly from the Isesaki area: stone tools, ear ornaments and clay dogu figurines from the Yoneoka site, Jomon pottery and stone tools from the Yasaka site, haniwa fragments from around Isesaki, and foundation stones and roof tiles from the Kamiueki temple ruins. Material from Indigenous communities of Canada that Shiga gathered in North America is also displayed here.

As you move through the cases, look up. On the upper floor you can see from below how the inclined beams and horizontal ties lock together. A room once stacked with hardware now holds finds from the Jomon period to early modern times.

Visiting

The interior of the Former Aikawa Family Residence Storehouse is open as a museum gallery, so admission gets you inside. It follows on naturally from a visit to the main house.

For the long exterior wall, walk round to the north of the main house within the grounds. Anyone wishing to photograph or publish exhibits should contact the museum. Opening hours, admission and directions are covered on the Former Aikawa Family Residence page.