Hirakiya Flag Shop

A Merchant House of Castle-Town Kanazawa

The Hirakiya Flag Shop (平木屋旗店) is a townhouse of the late Edo period (1830 to 1867) in Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on June 9, 2004 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Agency records a timber building roofed in sheet iron, with a building area of 110 square metres, recorded as two storeys; registration number 17-0103.

A Townhouse on the Sai River

The Hirakiya Flag Shop is a townhouse in central Kanazawa on the right bank of the Sai River, entered from the long side facing the street (Agency for Cultural Affairs). An earth-floored passage runs from front to back along the east side, and the rooms line up along the west: the shop at the front, then the living room, then a back room with an alcove and a Buddhist altar room.

The roof is now sheet iron, but it was once covered in wooden shingles (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Why It Was Registered

The Agency registered it for its contribution to the historic landscape, a building that shows what a merchant house of castle-town Kanazawa was like before the modern era.

What to Look For

Look at the street front along the eaves side and the sequence of rooms beside the earthen passage (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Visiting

No official information on interior access was found. The exterior can be seen from the street.