A Bank That Needed a Warehouse
The Former Yasuda Bank Collateral Warehouse (旧安田銀行担保倉庫, also known as 協同組合前橋商品市場倉庫, the Maebashi Commodity Market Cooperative Warehouse) stands in Sumiyoshi-chō, Maebashi City, Gunma Prefecture. It is a two-storey brick warehouse completed in 1913, and it was entered on Japan's national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 23 July 2004.
Fifty-four and a half metres of brick along a city street is an arresting thing to come across, and the length is the first fact to absorb. The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives the plan in traditional units as thirty ken by six: about 54.5 by 10.9 metres, a registered footprint of 693 square metres under a single gabled roof of pantiles.
Why a bank built it takes a moment longer to explain. Maebashi in 1913 was a silk town, and the silk trade ran on credit. A filature that had spun a season's thread borrowed against it; a dealer holding dried cocoons pledged them for working capital. The pledged goods had to sit somewhere secure, dry and insurable while the loan ran, and that somewhere was the lender's own warehouse. This building was that strongroom. Records indicate it also served as a cocoon drying facility and housed a branch office of the bank.
English Bond, Fukaya Brick
The walls are laid in English bond, alternating courses of headers and stretchers, and their thickness steps as the load falls away: two bricks through on the ground floor, one and a half on the upper. Inside, the floors are timber and the roof is carried on wooden king-post trusses. The register describes the plan as a nikomae warehouse, meaning two separate storage units under one roof.
The brick came from Nippon Brick Manufacturing at Fukaya, forty kilometres east across the Kantō plain, the firm Shibusawa Eiichi helped establish in 1887 and the supplier whose product went into Tokyo Station. Descriptions of the building record its bricks as larger than the modern Japanese standard, and credit the mortar joints to fukurin-meji, a rounded raised finish demanding a good deal of skill from the bricklayer and also used at Tokyo Station. These particulars come from secondary accounts rather than the national register, and are worth treating as reported rather than confirmed.
What is beyond dispute is the criterion under which the building was registered. Of the two standards available for registered structures, it qualified as a model of design, the more demanding of the pair, rather than under the broader clause covering contribution to the historic landscape. The assessors were commenting on the building itself, rather than merely on the street it improves.
From Gunma Commercial Bank to a Merchants' Cooperative
The Agency for Cultural Affairs records the warehouse as built for Gunma Commercial Bank as its Maebashi store; secondary accounts specify the Hosogazawa sub-branch of that bank. Ownership then moved through Meiji Commercial Bank to Hozen Bank, which later became Yasuda Bank, one of the four great zaibatsu banks and an ancestor of the institution known today as Mizuho. The building's registered name preserves that middle chapter rather than its first.
In 1951 the warehouse was sold to the Maebashi Commodity Market Cooperative, which owns it still. Gunma Prefecture added it to the Gunma Silk Heritage list in 2012.
Maebashi's silk had a reputation abroad that is easy to forget now. Raw thread from these filatures reached London and the weaving houses of Lyon, where the city's name is said to have circulated in various spellings as a mark of quality. The warehouse is one of the few places in the modern city where the physical scale of that trade is still legible.
Visiting
The building remains a working warehouse, which sets the terms for any visit. There is no ticket office and no daily opening. The interior becomes accessible during events: the Yasuda Renga Ichi, a market of Gunma makers and food producers held in the warehouse by a volunteer committee, and periodic art and local-history exhibitions mounted in the same space. Check the organisers' current schedule before making a special trip.
The exterior can be seen from the street at any hour, and a slow walk along the full length of the wall is the point of coming. From Chūō-Maebashi Station, terminus of the Jōmō Electric Railway, it is about fifteen minutes on foot. JR Maebashi Station is roughly ten minutes by car, and the Maebashi interchange on the Kan-etsu Expressway about fifteen.
The Hirosegawa riverside greenway runs a short distance away and makes an easy connection to the Maebashi Museum of Literature and the older streets around it. Rinkōkaku, a Meiji-period guest house built by the prefecture and designated an Important Cultural Property, sits north of the centre and pairs well with a morning here.
- 📍 Plan Your Visit to Gunma
- Find tours, activities & transport passes near Former Yasuda Bank Collateral Warehouse (Maebashi Commodity Market Cooperative Warehouse)
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Q&A
- Can you go inside the Former Yasuda Bank Collateral Warehouse?
- Not on a regular basis. The building is in use as a warehouse and opens to the public for events, chiefly the Yasuda Renga Ichi market and occasional exhibitions. Check the organisers' schedule before travelling if you want to see the interior.
- Where is the Former Yasuda Bank Collateral Warehouse and how do you get there?
- The address is 2-10-2 Sumiyoshi-chō, Maebashi City, Gunma Prefecture. It is about fifteen minutes on foot from Chūō-Maebashi Station on the Jōmō Electric Railway, ten minutes by car from JR Maebashi Station, and roughly fifteen minutes from the Maebashi interchange on the Kan-etsu Expressway.
- What was stored in the Former Yasuda Bank Collateral Warehouse?
- Raw silk and dried cocoons pledged as security against bank loans. The building also worked as a cocoon drying facility and housed a bank branch office, so lending, inspection and storage all happened on one site.
- How large is the Former Yasuda Bank Collateral Warehouse?
- One building of two storeys, thirty ken by six in traditional measure, which is roughly 54.5 by 10.9 metres. The registered footprint is 693 square metres. Walls are two bricks thick at ground level and one and a half above.
- Why is the Former Yasuda Bank Collateral Warehouse considered important?
- It was registered as a model of design, the stricter of the two criteria for registered structures, and it is among the largest surviving brick warehouses connected with the silk economy of Gunma. The prefecture added it to the Gunma Silk Heritage list in 2012.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Yasuda Bank Collateral Warehouse (Maebashi Commodity Market Cooperative Warehouse) / 旧安田銀行担保倉庫（協同組合前橋商品市場倉庫） |
|---|---|
| Location | 2-10-2 Sumiyoshi-chō, Maebashi City, Gunma Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure), registration number 10-0118; criterion: a model of design |
| Year Designated | Registered 23 July 2004; gazetted 17 August 2004 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Two-storey brick construction, pantiled gabled roof; 30 by 6 ken (about 54.5 by 10.9 m); registered footprint 693 m² |
| Owner | Maebashi Commodity Market Cooperative |
| Public Access | Still in use as a warehouse. Exterior visible from the street; interior opens for markets and exhibitions only |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs — 旧安田銀行担保倉庫（協同組合前橋商品市場倉庫）
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00004207
- Cultural Heritage Online — 旧安田銀行担保倉庫（協同組合前橋商品市場倉庫）
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/117287
- Gunma Silk Heritage Database — 旧安田銀行担保倉庫
- https://worldheritage.pref.gunma.jp/kinuisan/db-dtl.php?data=18
- Maebashi Marugoto Guide — 旧安田銀行担保倉庫
- https://www.maebashi-cvb.com/spot/8880
- Yasuda Renga Ichi Organising Committee
- https://yasudarengaichi.jimdosite.com/
Last verified: 2026.08.08