Iwase Family Residence Utensil Storehouse

A Clay-Walled Storehouse in the Courtyard

The Iwase Family Residence Utensil Storehouse (岩瀬家住宅道具蔵, Iwase-ke Jūtaku Dōgugura) is a two-storey clay-walled storehouse (Dozo-zukuri) built around 1911 in the courtyard behind the main house of a salt-producing family's estate in Shinhamacho, Sakaide, Kagawa Prefecture; it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 29 March 2019 (registration no. 37-434).

It faces east across the courtyard behind the main house. The roof is a simple gable (Kirizuma-zukuri) laid with traditional round-and-flat tiles (Hongawarabuki), and the building area is 60 square metres. A lean-to roof (Geya) runs along the front, with the doorway at its centre.

A dōgugura was the place a household kept its serving trays, lacquerware and furnishings. A merchant family that entertained often needed somewhere to rotate these through the seasons and the calendar of family occasions.

Why It Was Registered

The Agency for Cultural Affairs praises the Iwase Family Residence Utensil Storehouse as large and carefully built, and as a defining element of the courtyard.

The walls are finished in white lime plaster (Shikkui), with the lower walls and all four corners covered in Namako-kabe: flat tiles set diagonally and pointed with raised bands of plaster. The finish protects the most vulnerable parts of a clay wall from rain and fire, and gives the building a crisp lattice of white lines.

Inside, both floors are boarded and the walls are lined with vertical planks, which kept stored goods away from damp and from the clay of the walls.

The roof framing is the surprise. Instead of a traditional Japanese roof frame, the storehouse uses a triangulated Western-style truss. Behind a thoroughly traditional exterior, it quietly adopts a structural technique that had spread through Japan only since the Meiji era.

What to Look For

The contrast between smooth white plaster and the gridded namako work is the storehouse's signature. Because the tiles are confined to the base and the corners, the middle of each wall reads as a clean white panel.

The lean-to at the front shelters the doorway. Set across the courtyard from the main house and the reception wing, it forms the inner view of the estate.

Look, too, at the roof. The main house and the reception wing use lighter interlocking pantiles, but the Iwase Family Residence Utensil Storehouse carries heavier round-and-flat tiles, in keeping with a building meant to be solid.

Seeing the Storehouse

The storehouse stands in the courtyard of a private home and is not open to visitors. Because it lies behind the main house, it is essentially invisible from outside the property.

Directions and general viewing conditions for the estate are covered on the Iwase Family Residence page.