Motooka Family Residence East Storehouse

About the Motooka Family Residence East Storehouse

The Motooka Family Residence East Storehouse (本岡家住宅東蔵, Motooka-ke Jūtaku Higashigura) is a two-storey Dozo-zukuri earthen storehouse in Motomachi 2-chome, Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture, built in 1934, and it became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on March 27, 2006.

It measures 3.5 ken by 2.5 ken (Ketayuki and Harima, counted in the traditional Ken unit), with a footprint of 32 square meters, and stands near the southern boundary of the plot. It is the youngest of the four registered structures on the site.

The west storehouse, also set against the southern boundary, dates from 1872, so the east storehouse came 62 years later. The two are close in size and construction, but the details show which one belongs to the Shōwa era.

Registered for the Space It Creates

The Motooka Family Residence East Storehouse was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. What the Agency for Cultural Affairs singles out is its placement: the storehouse is positioned so as to form the forecourt in front of the main house.

Standing on the southern boundary, it closes the south side of that forecourt. Its window wall is turned toward the main house, so from the forecourt the wall with its windows reads as one edge of the yard.

Artificial-Stone Walls and Four Iron Shutters

The Motooka Family Residence East Storehouse has a Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles, built as an Okiyane, a roof framed separately and set on top of the storehouse body.

The walls, including the lower band, are rendered in mortar with an artificial-stone finish: cement mixed with crushed stone, applied and worked to look like natural stone. Where the west storehouse has real stone facing on its lower band, the east storehouse carries the same finish from top to bottom.

On the side facing the main house, two windows open on each floor, and each is fitted with Kannon-biraki iron shutters that swing open in pairs. Those four sets of iron doors, stacked two over two, give the building its face.

Viewing the Motooka Family Residence East Storehouse

The Motooka Family Residence East Storehouse is part of a private home, and no opening of the interior, regular or special, could be found.

Its iron shutters face the main house, which is to say into the grounds, so whether they can be seen from outside depends on where you stand. Please view the building and take photographs from the public road, and keep clear of the household.