Maruo Brewery East Main House

What the Maruo Brewery East Main House is

The Maruo Brewery East Main House (丸尾醸造所東主屋, Maruo Jōzōsho Higashi Shuoku) is a two-story plastered town house built in the early Taishō era in Enai, Kotohira-chō, Kagawa Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2005.

It faces north onto the Higashinaka shopping street with a frontage of seven bays, or ken. The roof is a gabled Kirizuma-zukuri form laid with Sangawara-buki pantiles, with the entrance on the long side in the Hirairi manner and a Hisashi canopy projecting over the street. The building area is 155 square meters, and it is the eastern of the brewery's two main houses.

Inside, the house divides east to west: the shop occupies the eastern end and the office the western end. In practice the Maruo Brewery East Main House is where the business meets its customers.

Why the Maruo Brewery East Main House was registered

The Maruo Brewery East Main House was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs treats this street as part of the old approach into Kotohira, the town below the shrine of Kotohira-gū, and singles out the house as one of the pieces that give the road its historic character. What it preserves is a merchant's street front in its Taishō-era form.

The construction is Nuriya-zukuri, in which the walls are thickly coated in earthen plaster so that no timber shows on the outside. The method was used in town houses as a precaution against fire, and it gives the East Main House a heavier, more closed look than its neighbor.

What to look for at the Maruo Brewery East Main House

Start with the upper floor of the facade. The wall is finished in black Shikkui plaster, and two Mushiko-mado windows with vertical slats sit in it, each outlined in white. From across the street the white frames stand out sharply against the black, so their placement is easy to read.

The canopy runs the full width above the ground floor and draws a horizontal line under the black wall. Between the canopy and the two windows, the seven-bay front splits cleanly into an upper and a lower band.

Next door to the west, the Maruo Brewery West Main House rises taller than the East Main House. Seen side by side, the difference in eave height is obvious.

Visiting the Maruo Brewery East Main House

The Maruo Brewery East Main House holds the shop and office of a working company, and we found no notice of public openings or interior tours. The black plaster and the slatted windows are visible from the Higashinaka shopping street. No photography policy has been published, so shoot from the far side of the street and keep clear of the shop entrance. Directions and general visiting notes are on the Maruo Brewery page.