The face a Kiryu weaving firm showed the street
The Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company Office (旧株式会社金芳織物工場事務所) is a two-story wooden office at 1-1-55 Higashi-Hisakata-cho in Kiryu, Gunma Prefecture, built in the early Shōwa era, that is at some point after 1926, and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 11 December 1998.
Its footprint is small, 71 square meters, and it was never meant to hold machinery. Weaving happened behind it. This was where orders were taken, accounts kept and buyers received, and the building was dressed accordingly.
The firm behind it was started in the early Meiji era by Kanaya Yoshijirō, who took one character from his surname and one from his given name to make the trade name Kanayoshi. By the time this office went up, the company was running a brick weaving shed on the same plot and doing well enough to want a front of house that looked modern.
Scratch tile, round corners, and a horizontal line
The outer walls are faced in scratch tile, a ribbed ceramic cladding that spread through Japanese building in the late 1920s and the 1930s. The Agency for Cultural Affairs treats that material as the clearest evidence for when the office was built, because the brick shed it adjoins dates from 1919 and scratch tile was not yet in use then.
Kiryu took to the material with some enthusiasm. The city's own account of the old Kiryu Textile Hall, finished during the same boom, notes that scratch-tile offices and houses appeared around it once the fashion caught on. The Kanayoshi office belongs to that moment in the town's building history.
Two features repay a close look. The corners are rounded rather than cut square, and there are circular windows set into the wall. The registration file singles out the emphasis on horizontal lines as a mark of Wright-style design, the manner named after the American architect whose work was widely imitated in Japan in these years.
The registration criterion applied was the one covering buildings that serve as a model of design. Of the three tests used under the register, this is the one about form rather than rarity or landscape.
Two decades side by side
The Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company Office is joined on one side to the 1919 weaving shed and on the other to the Kanaya family house of 1931. Standing at the point where they meet is the best way to see what the office is doing.
On one side, load-bearing brick in English bond, sheet iron above, the plainest possible industrial envelope. On the other, a Japanese timber dwelling with a tiled roof. Between them, a small Western-styled office in ribbed ceramic tile. Taishō and Shōwa, workshop and parlour, all within a few paces.
The city registered the office and the shed together on 11 December 1998 and added the family house and the storehouse in 2015. In more recent years Kiryu has grouped the office with the shed as the fifteenth entry on its municipal list of structures forming the historic townscape.
One caution about dates. A Kiryu city page describing the whole complex says in passing that the office was among the buildings put up in 1919. The registration data on that same page, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs record, both give the early Shōwa era. The registration data is the sounder figure, and the scratch tile supports it.
Seeing the office
The Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company Office stands in grounds now occupied by a bakery and café housed in the neighboring weaving shed. The office itself is not opened to visitors; what you can do is walk up to it and look, which is enough, because everything worth seeing is on the outside.
The grounds are accessible while the café is trading, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with a break over the new year period. Parking for 31 cars sits behind the buildings. Nothing is charged for looking at the exterior.
Walking from JR Kiryu Station on the Ryōmō Line takes around 18 minutes. A taxi covers it in about 8. Drivers leaving the Kita-Kantō Expressway at Ōta-Kiryu should allow 20 minutes, and Shin-Kiryu Station on the Tōbu Isesaki Line is about 13 minutes away by car.
Photographing the exterior from the grounds is unrestricted as far as either the city or the site operator states, though the round windows read best from the west side in the afternoon. The Kiryu Shinmachi Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings begins a short distance to the south-west, which makes the office a natural first or last stop on a walk through the old weaving town.
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Q&A
- Can visitors go inside the Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company Office?
- No. The interior is not opened to the public, and neither the city nor the site operator advertises any interior access. The exterior can be viewed at close range from the grounds, free of charge, while the café in the adjoining shed is trading.
- When was the Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company Office built?
- The registration record gives the early Shōwa era, so after 1926. The scratch-tile cladding supports that dating, since the material came into use after the neighboring brick shed of 1919. It was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 11 December 1998.
- What should I look for on the Kanayoshi office building?
- The rounded corners, the circular windows, and the way every band of the facade runs horizontally. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes that horizontal emphasis as a mark of Wright-style design.
- How do I get to the Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company Office?
- It is roughly an 18-minute walk or an 8-minute taxi ride from JR Kiryu Station on the Ryōmō Line. By car, allow about 20 minutes from the Ōta-Kiryu interchange on the Kita-Kantō Expressway. There are 31 parking spaces on site.
- What is the difference between the Kanayoshi office and the weaving shed next to it?
- The shed was built in 1919 in brick with a sawtooth roof and held the looms. The office is a later timber building faced in scratch tile, put up in the early Shōwa era for clerical work. The two were registered on the same day in 1998.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company Office (旧株式会社金芳織物工場事務所) |
|---|---|
| Location | 1-1-55 Higashi-Hisakata-cho, Kiryu, Gunma Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) |
| Year Designated | Registered on 11 December 1998 (Heisei 10) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Building area 71 square meters; wooden construction, 2 stories |
| Owner | Lupin Ltd. (the owner field of the Agency for Cultural Affairs database is blank) |
| Public Access | Exterior viewing only; the interior is not open. The grounds can be entered while the café in the adjoining shed is trading, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. No charge |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Database of Designated Cultural Properties: Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company Office
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00000949
- Kiryu City: Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company (registered cultural properties)
- https://www.city.kiryu.lg.jp/kankou/bunkazai/1010700/kunitouroku/1001996.html
- Kiryu City: Former Kanaya Family Residence and Former Kanayoshi Textile Mill Company
- https://www.city.kiryu.lg.jp/kankou/bunkazai/1010700/kunitouroku/1013382.html
- Kiryu City: Old Building of the Kiryu Textile Hall
- https://www.city.kiryu.lg.jp/kankou/bunkazai/1010700/kunitouroku/1001995.html
- Kiryu City: Structures Forming the Historic Townscape
- https://www.city.kiryu.lg.jp/shisei/machi/1018368/1012377/1018437.html
- Bakery Cafe Renga (site operator): store information
- https://www.kiryu-renga.jp/
Last verified: 2026.09.09