Former Fujimura Family Residence (Tamura Family Residence) Rear Storehouse

A Small Storehouse Dressed for the Garden

The Former Fujimura Family Residence (Tamura Family Residence) Rear Storehouse is a two-storey earthen-walled storehouse of the early Meiji era (1868–1882) in a townhouse compound on the old Hokkoku Kaidō in Nonoichi City, Ishikawa Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2021.

It is attached to the southeast corner of the Annex, with its ridge running north to south and its front facing west. Under a gabled roof of pantiles, it covers just 41 square metres, less than half the size of the Front Storehouse on the highway. Yet no building at the Former Fujimura Family Residence has more carefully finished walls.

Nonoichi City's registration release lists the Rear Storehouse, along with the Annex and the Front Gate, among the structures that keep features from the time of Emperor Meiji's 1878 visit.

Why It Was Registered

The Agency for Cultural Affairs draws attention to how the walls are treated. On the south and west faces the lower walls are finished decoratively, with white shikkui plaster above. The east face, by contrast, was left at the intermediate coat of clay. The Agency reads this as a design shaped by how the storehouse would look from the south garden.

A dozo storehouse is a working building, meant to keep valuables safe from fire. Giving one a formal front and a plain back, arranged around the view from a garden, is what makes this one distinctive. The Annex's reception rooms, the south garden and this decorated wall were evidently meant to be seen together. It was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape.

What to Look For

The lower walls on the south and west are layered in bands. At the bottom is Tomuro stone laid in a hexagonal, tortoise-shell pattern; above it comes Shakudani stone laid in straight courses; above that is namako-kabe, tiles set in plaster with raised white joints; and white plaster finishes the upper wall.

Tomuro stone is an andesite quarried near Kanazawa and used in the walls of Kanazawa Castle, the signature building stone of the old Kaga domain. Shakudani stone is a greenish tuff from Fukui, used across the Hokuriku region. Setting the local stone and the Echizen stone on one wall, and tying them together with namako plaster, is a very Hokuriku way of dressing a storehouse.

Do not overlook the plain east wall. Seen against it, the effort spent on the south and west faces becomes obvious.

Viewing the Rear Storehouse

The Rear Storehouse stands inside the grounds of a private home and is not open to visitors. Its decorated south and west walls face the inner garden, so they are practically impossible to see from the street.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs database has photographs of the south and east faces, which show the wall finishes clearly. On site, expect to see only the surrounding gates and walls. Directions and general viewing conditions are on the Former Fujimura Family Residence page.