Komi Family Residence (Mizumuraen) Miso Storehouse

The storehouse on the household side

The Komi Family Residence (Mizumuraen) Miso Storehouse (小見家住宅（水村園）味噌蔵, Komi-ke Jūtaku Misogura) is a 2-storey Dozo-zukuri storehouse built in the early Meiji era at the Mizumuraen tea shop in Honmachi, Takasaki City, Gunma Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on December 4, 2000.

At 29 square metres it is the roomiest of the five earthen storehouses on the west side of the lot. The plan is 3 and a half Ken by 2 and a half ken, the ridge runs north to south under a Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roof, and that roof is sheet metal rather than tile. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database calls it galvanised sheet in one field and iron sheet in another; either way, it is metal.

The Miso Storehouse stands north of the Kimono Storehouse but does not touch it. A gap of 1 ken between the two serves as its kuramae, the working space in front of a storehouse door. Beyond it, to the north, come the New and Front storehouses.

Why it was registered

The Komi Family Residence (Mizumuraen) Miso Storehouse holds registration No. 10-0046 and was listed as a building that would not be easy to reproduce. The Agency classes it as a domestic building rather than a commercial one.

Its location is the point. According to the Agency, the Miso Storehouse stood on the side nearest the shop's front storehouse and main house, both lost when the road was widened, and together with the New Zashiki and Kimono Storehouse it formed the inward-looking, household part of the premises. This was not where the tea was kept.

The name fits. Miso, the fermented soybean paste at the heart of everyday Japanese cooking, was a staple of the kitchen, not stock for sale. Nothing in the record says how much the family made or stored, but the name places this building close to the life of the house.

With the main house gone, few clues remain to where the centre of the household once lay. The position of the Miso Storehouse is one of them.

What to look for

The Komi Family Residence (Mizumuraen) Miso Storehouse is the only storehouse in the west row with a metal roof; the other four are tiled. Whether it was built that way or re-roofed later, the Agency's notes do not say.

Look, too, at the kuramae. In a row where the storehouses otherwise press gable to gable, a 1-ken gap was left open here, most likely as space to set down goods while loading and unloading.

The Miso Storehouse has the largest floor area of the five, yet its ridge sits lower than those of the Kimono and New storehouses. Within one short line, some buildings were made for capacity and others for height.

Visiting

The Komi Family Residence (Mizumuraen) Miso Storehouse is a private building behind a working tea shop and is not open to the public. Ask the shop if you would like to view or photograph it.

If you are allowed into the lot, pause at the kuramae. The gap between the Kimono and Miso storehouses is one of the few spots where you can step back and take in a storehouse door face on.