A Plank Storehouse of About 1929
The Former Chida Tadashi Residence Itakura Storehouse (旧千田正家住宅板倉, Kyū Chida Tadashi-ke Jūtaku Itakura) is a two-story wooden storehouse at Mikajiri in the town of Kanegasaki, Isawa District, Iwate Prefecture, built around 1929 and entered on Japan's register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 27 March 2018 under registration number 03-105.
It stands north of the main house and faces south, a gabled box of 41 square meters roofed in sheet iron. A doorway opens on the south face. The only window is high up, in the second story of the east gable end. Everything else is wall.
That wall is the point. Instead of a mud-and-plaster shell, the builders set a sill around the foundation, stood posts close together, and dropped horizontal boards down between them, slotting each plank into grooves cut in the post faces. No nails hold the planks; gravity and the grooves do. Japanese carpenters call the method otoshikomi, and a storehouse built this way is an itakura, literally a plank storehouse.
An itakura is the poorer cousin of the whitewashed dozō that tourists photograph in old merchant towns, and it is also the older and more widespread type across northeastern Japan. Timber was near at hand; lime and plasterers were not. Boards breathe, which suits rice and seed grain, and a damaged plank can be pulled out and replaced without touching the frame. The trade-off is fire: a dozō will survive a blaze that takes an itakura down in minutes. Storehouses of this construction have accordingly grown scarce, and few in Iwate can be approached at close range.
Registered for the Landscape It Makes
Japan's Registered Tangible Cultural Property system, in place since 1996, protects buildings roughly fifty years old or more with a light regulatory touch. Three criteria are available to registering authorities. The main house on this site was taken in under the criterion for a model of design. The storehouse was taken in under a different one: that it contributes to the historic landscape of the country.
The distinction is worth pausing on, because it means the storehouse was not registered for refinement. It was registered because the grounds do not read correctly without it. Remove the dark plank box from the north side and the house loses the scale against which its own size registers, along with the evidence that this was a working agricultural household rather than a villa.
The storehouse has not always stood exactly where it stands now. The Agency for Cultural Affairs records that it was moved in 1995 by hikiya, the technique of jacking a building up and sliding it intact to a new position rather than dismantling it. That was the year Kanegasaki town opened the Chida Tadashi Memorial Museum on the property, and the same period saw the reception wing of the 1909 official residence of the Governor of Iwate brought here from elsewhere. All three buildings entered the register together in March 2018, an occasion the town marked with a performance of Mikajiri shishi-odori, the local deer dance.
The Chida were a landowning family who had come to Mikajiri from Mizusawa and prospered on Kitakami River freight. Chida Tadashi (千田正, 1899 to 1983), born on the property, went on to three terms in the House of Councillors from 1947 and four terms as Governor of Iwate between 1963 and 1979. The storehouse predates all of that. It was raised when he was thirty, a working farm building for a working farm.
What to Look For
Get close to a corner post and look at the joint between post and plank. You should be able to see the groove, and if the timber has moved over ninety-odd winters you may see daylight in the seam. The board ends are not fastened. The whole envelope is held by compression and by the frame around it.
Count the posts. Otoshikomi construction needs them at short intervals, because each plank spans only from one post to the next, and that spacing gives an itakura its characteristic ribbed rhythm from outside.
Then look for windows and fail to find them. One opening in the east gable, second floor, and nothing else but the south door. A storehouse is a container before it is a room.
Practical matters. The storehouse sits within the grounds of the Chida Tadashi Memorial Museum, run by Kanegasaki town, and is normally viewed from the outside; the interior has not been part of the public route, and there is no interpretive panel beside it, so visitors often walk past without registering that it carries its own listing. Published opening information for the site gives Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and national holidays from May through October, 10:00 to 16:00, with free admission and a small car park. Confirm current arrangements with the town office on 0197-42-2111. The address is 98 Yachinaka, Mikajiri, Kanegasaki: roughly a thirty-minute walk from Rokuhara Station on the JR Tōhoku Main Line, a short taxi ride from Kanegasaki Station, or about ten minutes by car from the Kitakami-Kanegasaki interchange of the Tōhoku Expressway.
Photographing it is harder than it sounds. The building sits close to its neighbours, and getting the whole south face in one frame without another roof intruding takes some walking about. Morning light on the east gable is the easier shot.
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Q&A
- What is an itakura, and what makes the Former Chida Tadashi Residence Itakura Storehouse one?
- An itakura is a storehouse whose walls are made of horizontal boards dropped into grooves cut in closely spaced posts, a method called otoshikomi, rather than of mud and plaster as in a dozō. The Chida storehouse is built exactly this way: a sill runs around the foundation, the posts stand close together, and the planks slot down between them.
- Can visitors go inside the Former Chida Tadashi Residence Itakura Storehouse?
- The interior has not been open to the public. The storehouse is viewed from outside within the grounds of the Chida Tadashi Memorial Museum, where the main house and the relocated governor's residence wing hold the displays. Published site hours are 10:00 to 16:00 on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and national holidays from May through October, admission free. Confirm with the town office on 0197-42-2111.
- When was the Former Chida Tadashi Residence Itakura Storehouse built and registered?
- The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to about 1929 and records that it was moved to its present position in 1995 by the hikiya method. It was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property on 27 March 2018 under number 03-105, in the same round as the main house and the former governor's residence wing.
- Why was the Former Chida Tadashi Residence Itakura Storehouse registered, given that it is a plain farm building?
- It was registered under the criterion for buildings that contribute to the historic landscape of the country, which is a different criterion from the one applied to the main house. The value recognised is the storehouse's role in the composition of the grounds and its evidence of otoshikomi plank construction, a technique now uncommon in surviving Iwate buildings.
- How large is the Former Chida Tadashi Residence Itakura Storehouse?
- It is a single wooden building of two stories with a gabled sheet-iron roof and a building footprint of 41 square meters, which is a little under half the footprint recorded for the main house on the same grounds.
- Is the Former Chida Tadashi Residence Itakura Storehouse worth a trip on its own?
- It is best seen as part of the three-building group on the site, which takes perhaps forty minutes to walk. Visitors coming to Kanegasaki for the Jonai Suwakoji Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings can add it to the same day, since the two are only a few kilometers apart.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Chida Tadashi Residence Itakura Storehouse (旧千田正家住宅板倉) |
|---|---|
| Location | 98 Yachinaka, Mikajiri, Kanegasaki, Isawa District, Iwate Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structures), registration no. 03-105 |
| Year Designated | Registered 27 March 2018 (89th round) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Wooden, two stories, metal-sheet gabled roof; building footprint 41 m2 |
| Owner | Town of Kanegasaki |
| Public Access | Exterior viewing within the Chida Tadashi Memorial Museum grounds; interior not open. Reported hours Fri, Sat, Sun and national holidays, May to October, 10:00 to 16:00; admission free. Confirm with Kanegasaki town office, 0197-42-2111. |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Former Chida Tadashi Residence Itakura Storehouse
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00012085
- Cultural Heritage Online: Former Chida Tadashi Residence Itakura Storehouse
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/364774
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Former Chida Tadashi Residence Main House
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00012084
- Cultural Heritage Online: Former Chida Tadashi Residence Main House
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/431803
- Kanegasaki Town Office: facility guide, tourism, culture and sports facilities
- https://www.town.kanegasaki.iwate.jp/map/index_bunya@shisetsu@kanko_bunka_sports.html
- Koho Kanegasaki, July 2025 issue, page 20 (town chronology, 2018 registration)
- https://www.town.kanegasaki.iwate.jp/articles/2025071600032/file_contents/p20.pdf
Last verified: 2026.08.06