Kawashima Bookstore Misegura

The Story Behind the Building

The Kawashima Shoten Misegura traces its origins to the late Edo period, an era when the town of Makabe was rebuilding itself after a devastating fire that swept through the district in 1837 (Tenpō 8). Before that fire, the town's buildings were largely roofed with thatch and wooden boards, and shophouses were modest in their fire resistance. The disaster proved transformative. In its aftermath, merchants who could afford to do so began constructing solid plaster-walled storehouses known as misegura, or "shop storehouses," which combined the commercial functions of a retail counter with the fireproof protection of a traditional kura warehouse.

The building was originally built to house a dealer in shōyaku, the traditional herbal medicines that formed the backbone of Japanese pharmacy long before Western pharmaceuticals arrived. It was a respectable trade in a town that served as the commercial hub of the surrounding agricultural countryside, and the substantial nature of the building reflects both the prosperity of its first owner and the ever-present anxiety about fire that shaped Edo-period townscapes.

Today the building belongs to the Kawashima family and houses Kawashima Shoten, a bookshop selling books, magazines, school supplies, and stationery to the local community. During the annual Makabe Hina Matsuri festival, traditional ornamental dolls are displayed inside the historic interior, allowing visitors to see the building used in much the way it has been for nearly two centuries.

Why It Was Designated a Cultural Property

The Kawashima Shoten Misegura was registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property of Japan as part of the broader recognition of Makabe's exceptional concentration of historic merchant architecture. The town contains over one hundred registered cultural properties, making it one of the densest collections of preserved traditional buildings in the Kantō region. In 2010, the Makabe district was further selected as an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings, the eighty-seventh such designation in Japan and the first in Ibaraki Prefecture.

What makes the Kawashima Shoten Misegura particularly valuable to architectural historians is its age and its preserved details. As a structure dating to the late Edo period, it is among the older surviving examples of the misegura type in Makabe, predating the wave of construction that followed the Meiji Restoration. The building also retains a feature that has been lost in many comparable structures: at the rear, where the shop once connected to the family's living quarters, an original plaster-coated fireproof sliding door survives intact. This kind of shikkui-nuri sliding partition was a defining feature of Edo-period fire-prevention design, and seeing one in its authentic context is increasingly rare.

Architectural Highlights and What to Look For

Approaching the building from the street, the first thing visitors notice is the heavy, sculptural quality of its exterior. The thick walls are built up in layers of clay and finished with white or near-white shikkui plaster, a material that not only resisted fire but lent the surface a soft, slightly reflective quality that changes with the light throughout the day. The roof tiles, the deep eaves, and the carefully proportioned façade all speak to the craftsmanship of the regional builders who specialized in this kind of construction.

Inside, the high ceiling and exposed structural members give a sense of the building's solidity. The interior space, traditionally used to display goods at the front while storing inventory toward the rear, has been adapted over the years for its current use as a bookshop, but the underlying spatial logic of the misegura remains legible. The fireproof sliding door at the rear is the architectural detail most worth seeking out, both for its historical importance and for the quiet beauty of its plastered surface.

The Kawashima Shoten Misegura should be appreciated as part of a streetscape rather than as an isolated monument. It stands shoulder to shoulder with neighboring misegura, dozō storehouses, and yakui-mon gates, all forming a continuous historic frontage along the Gojinya-mae street that was once the central commercial axis of Makabe.

Visitor Information and Access

Kawashima Shoten is a working bookshop, so visitors are welcome to step inside during business hours, though it is good etiquette to make a small purchase or at least to be respectful of the fact that this is a place of business rather than a museum. The exterior, of course, can be admired from the street at any hour of day or evening.

The most rewarding time to visit is during the Makabe Hina Matsuri (Doll Festival), held annually from early February through early March. During this period, more than one hundred and fifty households in the historic district display their family hina dolls in their shop windows and entrances, and Kawashima Shoten participates by exhibiting dolls inside its historic misegura. The atmosphere of the entire town transforms during the festival into something close to a stroll through pre-modern Japan.

The town can be reached by car from the Sakuragawa-Chikusei Interchange on the Kita-Kantō Expressway, about a twenty-five-minute drive away. Public transport is also possible: from JR Iwase Station on the Mito Line, the Sakuragawa City community bus runs to the Makabe district, with the Shimo-juku stop being closest to the historic streetscape. From the Tsukuba area, buses connect from Tsukuba-san-guchi Bus Centre. Free parking is available at the Takagamicho parking lot within the historic district during most of the year.

Surrounding Attractions

The Kawashima Shoten Misegura is one of dozens of remarkable buildings within easy walking distance, and a visitor planning a half-day or full-day trip to Makabe will find no shortage of places to explore. Among the highlights nearby are: the Ushioda Family Residence, a former kimono and dry-goods merchant's complex with one of the widest shop frontages in town; the Nishioka Honten, a still-active sake brewery whose buildings can be visited and whose brand "Hana no I" can be tasted; the former Makabe Post Office, an elegant Western-style building from 1927 originally built as a bank branch and now used as a tourist information centre during the doll festival; and the Makabe Denshōkan, a contemporary cultural complex housing a library, museum, and community space designed in dialogue with the historic townscape. Slightly further afield, the Makabe Castle Ruins, a National Historic Site, mark the medieval origins of the town, and the area around Mount Tsukuba offers natural attractions including hiking trails and the famous Tsukuba-san Shrine.