Komi Family Residence (Mizumuraen) Brick Storehouse

Brick on one side, timber posts on the other

The Komi Family Residence (Mizumuraen) Brick Storehouse (小見家住宅（水村園）レンガ蔵, Komi-ke Jūtaku Rengagura) is a 2-storey brick storehouse built in the mid-Taisho era at the Mizumuraen tea shop in Honmachi, Takasaki City, Gunma Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on December 4, 2000.

With a building area of 53 square metres it is the largest of the eight registered buildings. It runs along the east edge of the lot, facing the Kimono, Miso and New storehouses across the alley, on a long, slim plan of 7 and a half Ken by 2 ken under a north-south hipped Yosemune-zukuri roof of Sangawara-buki tiles.

Its two long sides could hardly be more different. The east side is simply the brick firewall that doubles as the boundary with the neighbours. The west side is a row of timber posts with no wall between them, open to the alley. One building, two ways of building.

Why it was registered

The Komi Family Residence (Mizumuraen) Brick Storehouse carries registration No. 10-0050 and was listed as a building that would not be easy to reproduce. The Agency for Cultural Affairs classes it as a commercial building.

The Agency calls it one of only a few examples of mixed brick and timber construction. Borrowing an existing firewall for one outer wall and carrying the other side on a timber frame can also be read as a canny economy: it saved building a new wall, yet kept brick on the side where fire from next door would arrive.

According to the shop, the bricks are laid in English bond, unlike the Flemish bond of the Bathhouse further along the same wall. English bond alternates whole courses of long faces with whole courses of short ends.

What to look for

Look at the Komi Family Residence (Mizumuraen) Brick Storehouse one side at a time. The east wall shuts out the neighbouring lot; the west side opens toward the courtyard through its line of posts. Closed and open are split cleanly down the length of a single building.

Because the west side has no wall, the building shelters a long, roofed strip beside the alley. Posts marching down 7 and a half ken make a sharp contrast with the plastered walls of the storehouses opposite.

Then study the brickwork. If the shop's account is right, these are alternating courses of stretchers and headers, easy to tell apart from the mixed courses of the Bathhouse to the south.

Visiting

The Komi Family Residence (Mizumuraen) Brick Storehouse is private property behind a working tea shop and is not open to the public. Ask the shop about viewing or photography.

If you are invited in, look down the line of posts on the west side. Through them you can see the brick wall behind, and the pairing of the two techniques becomes clear at a glance.