A 20-square-meter storehouse inside a Western-style house
Kameya Shoji (Former Iijima Family Residence) Main Building Storehouse is a small dozo-zukuri storehouse of about 1935 at 1-78 Raidencho in Koga City, Ibaraki Prefecture, and it has been a Registered Tangible Cultural Property since 2004. Its building area is 20 square meters, which makes it the smallest of the 4 registered structures on and around the Iijima family site.
It sits north of the entrance bay at the northwest corner of the main house, with its ridge running east to west. The plan is 2 and a half ken by 2 ken. The roof is gabled in the kirizuma-zukuri manner and laid with pantiles, and the building is entered on the gable end, an arrangement known as tsumairi.
One detail settles what this building was for. Its doorway opens on the west face of the corridor that links the main house with the wing holding the former dining room and bathroom. You did not cross a yard to reach it; you stepped out of an interior passage. This was a storehouse for household goods in daily use, folded into the circulation of the house rather than parked at the back of the plot.
The two records disagree slightly on its height. The structure field of the national register reads single-storey, while the descriptive note from the same source calls it a 2-storey storehouse and records 2 windows opening on the upper level of the south face. The windows are the stronger evidence.
Why a storehouse this small was registered
Registration number 08-0125 was entered on 9 June 2004 under the criterion for buildings that contribute to the historic character of the national landscape. A 20-square-meter store would not earn that on its own account. It earns it as one member of a set.
The national register treats the Iijima property as 4 separate entries made on one day, and the descriptive note for this one is explicit about the relationship: together with the main house and the former bathroom, Kameya Shoji (Former Iijima Family Residence) Main Building Storehouse forms the west elevation of the complex. Remove it and the wall of the composition has a hole in it.
There is a second point worth making. The main house of 1935 was finished in tile, marble and copper, in a Western idiom that its owner clearly wanted the street to see. Behind it, at the same date, the family was still building a plastered storehouse with a tiled gable roof, in a technique passed down largely unchanged. Registered together, the two make the split visible: a Western front, a Japanese working core, and both of them new in the same year.
Reading the building from what survives
The proportions are the first thing. At 2 and a half ken by 2 ken this is a store for boxes and household stock rather than for bales of merchandise, which is consistent with a house rather than a factory site. Compare it with the long brick warehouse of the former Iijima silk mill across the prefectural road, which held the business, and the difference in purpose is legible in floor area alone.
Then the openings, which in a storehouse are always the argument. There are very few: a doorway to the west, on the corridor, and 2 windows high on the south wall. A thick-walled plaster building keeps its contents cool and dry by having as little wall pierced as possible, and the placement here puts both light and access where the house needed them without exposing the store to weather from the north.
Finally the roof. Pantiles on a gable, with the entrance under the gable end, is the plain and structurally direct solution, and it is worth noticing that no attempt was made to dress the storehouse up to match the front of the property. The main house borrowed a European vocabulary. This building did not.
Seeing Kameya Shoji (Former Iijima Family Residence) Main Building Storehouse
Expectations should be set carefully here. The storehouse stands behind and to the northwest of the main house, on land owned and used by Kameya Shoji Co., Ltd., and the main house itself screens most of it from the prefectural road. There is no interior visit, no opening time and no fee, and walking onto the grounds is not permitted.
In practice what a visitor sees from the public road is the tiled roof of the storehouse rising behind the main building, and only from certain angles. Photography from the road is unrestricted, but the useful advice is to photograph the west side of the complex as a whole rather than to hunt for a clear shot of this one building.
The site is about 600 meters north of the east exit of Koga Station on the JR Utsunomiya Line, roughly 8 minutes on foot. Neither Koga City nor Ibaraki Prefecture lists the storehouse among facilities open to visitors, and no special opening has been announced. Enquiries about the property go to the Cultural Promotion Division of Koga City on 0280-22-5111. Checked in September 2026.
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Q&A
- Can Kameya Shoji (Former Iijima Family Residence) Main Building Storehouse be seen from the street?
- Only partly. The storehouse stands behind the main house at the northwest of the site, so from the prefectural road you generally see its roof rather than the whole building.
- How big is Kameya Shoji Main Building Storehouse?
- Its building area is 20 square meters, on a plan of 2 and a half ken by 2 ken. That makes it the smallest of the 4 buildings registered on this property in 2004.
- Is Kameya Shoji Main Building Storehouse one storey or two?
- The sources differ. The structure field of the national register says single-storey; the descriptive note calls it a 2-storey storehouse and records 2 windows on the upper part of the south wall.
- When was Kameya Shoji Main Building Storehouse built and registered?
- It dates from about 1935, the same period as the main house, and it became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 9 June 2004 under registration number 08-0125.
- How do I reach the site of Kameya Shoji Main Building Storehouse?
- Walk north from the east exit of Koga Station for about 600 meters, roughly 8 minutes. The storehouse is on the same plot as the main building on the prefectural Higashi-Noda Koga road.
Basic Information
| Name | Kameya Shoji (Former Iijima Family Residence) Main Building Storehouse |
|---|---|
| Location | 1-78 Raidencho, Koga City, Ibaraki Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) |
| Year Designated | Registered in 2004 (Heisei 16) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Building area 20 square meters; 2 and a half ken by 2 ken |
| Owner | Kameya Shoji Co., Ltd. |
| Public Access | Interior not open; partly visible from the public road |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Kameya Shoji (Former Iijima Family Residence) Main Building Storehouse
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00004111
- Ibaraki Prefectural Board of Education, Cultural Properties of Ibaraki: Kameya Shoji Main Building Storehouse
- https://kyoiku.pref.ibaraki.jp/bunkazai/bunkazai-registered-6283/
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Kameya Shoji (Former Iijima Family Residence) Main Building
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00004110
- Koga City: Registered and designated cultural properties, structures
- https://www.city.ibaraki-koga.lg.jp/soshiki/bunka/15/siteitourokubunnkazai/kogabunkazaikennzoubutu/index.html
Last verified: 2026.09.05