A 1923 Shop-House Under an Arcade Roof
The Shigemoto Fruit Shop Store (重元果物店店舗, also romanised Shigemoto Kudamono-ten Tenpo) is a two-storey timber merchant's shop built in 1923 at Hamamachi in Marugame City, Kagawa Prefecture, and registered as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 18 October 2006. It sits inside a covered shopping arcade about two minutes on foot from JR Marugame Station, squeezed between newer shopfronts on both sides.
What makes people look up is the colour. The whole of the second-floor wall is black: part of it finished in black shikkui lime plaster, part faced in black glazed tile. Most Japanese townhouse fronts of this period are white, ochre or bare timber, so a wall this dark reads almost as a deliberate act of showing off. In the flat light under the arcade roof the plaster and the tile separate slowly, the plaster slightly softer and more matte, the tile catching a narrow line of reflection along each edge.
The building measures six ken along the street and three ken in depth, roughly 11 by 5.5 metres, with a recorded building area of 59 square metres. The roof is irimoya (hipped-and-gabled) and covered in hongawarabuki, the heavier formal tiling of alternating broad pan tiles and semi-cylindrical cover tiles that is normally associated with temple halls and castle gates rather than with a fruit shop. Choosing it here was expensive, and that choice tells you something about how the business saw itself.
Registration, and Why the Black Wall Mattered
Japan runs two parallel systems for historic buildings. Designation (shitei), which produces National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties, is reserved for a small number of buildings and comes with tight controls. Registration (toroku), introduced in 1996, is a lighter instrument aimed at buildings still in everyday use: owners notify the authorities before making significant alterations, but the property continues to function as a shop, a house or a factory. The great majority of the roughly 500 registered structures in Kagawa Prefecture belong to this second category, and the Shigemoto shop is one of them, carrying registration number 37-0308 from the 52nd round of registrations.
The Agency for Cultural Affairs registered it under the criterion covering buildings that would be difficult to reproduce. Its file singles out the second-floor finish: black lime plaster combined with black tile, a treatment the Agency describes as appearing only in limited numbers in the urban centres of Marugame and Tadotsu, and therefore valuable as a surviving example of regionally distinctive design.
That is a narrower claim than it first appears, and worth unpacking. Black shikkui is made by working soot into the lime, then burnishing the surface, and it demands a plasterer confident enough to work with a finish that shows every flaw. Black glazed tile arrived as a modern industrial product in the Taisho period (1912 to 1926). Setting the two side by side on one facade is a hybrid gesture, part inherited craft and part new material, and it apparently caught on among merchants in these two neighbouring towns on the Seto Inland Sea coast and almost nowhere else in the prefecture. Marugame and Tadotsu lie about six kilometres apart, both port towns that grew on coastal trade, and the fashion seems to have travelled that short distance and stopped.
Signage on the building records the firm as a wholesale greengrocer as well as a retail fruit shop, with a founding date given as 1897. That date comes from the shop's own lettering rather than from the Agency's file, so it is best treated as the family's account of itself.
Seeing It: What to Notice, and What You Cannot Enter
The shop is no longer trading and the interior is not regularly open to visitors. The exterior, however, is fully visible from the public arcade at any hour and costs nothing to see. Photography from the arcade is unproblematic, though the building is privately owned and the courtesy of not blocking the walkway applies.
Look for the small registration plaque, a cast metal marker in a standard national design, fixed on the north side of the second floor. Then step back as far as the arcade allows and look at the eaves line: the roof projects further than the neighbouring shops, and the ridge tiles sit heavily against the arcade's translucent panels. From directly beneath, the ground-floor shopfront has been modernised over the decades, so the second storey is where the 1923 building survives most clearly.
The building has been opened occasionally for temporary use. During the autumn session of the 2019 Setouchi Triennale it operated as a café and exhibition space under the name Kyu-Shigemoto Kudamonoten (the former Shigemoto Fruit Shop), hosting workshops and a photography show. Openings of this kind are announced locally and are not on a fixed schedule, so anyone hoping to get inside should check with Marugame tourism sources shortly before travelling rather than assuming access.
Marugame rewards a longer walk. Marugame Castle, whose small wooden keep is one of only twelve original keeps left in Japan, is about fifteen minutes south through the connecting Torimachi arcade. The Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art stands directly in front of the station. Two more registered buildings survive within walking distance: the Horike Clock Shop in Nishihirayama-cho and the Hogetsudo South Wing in Komeya-cho, both viewable from the street.
One point of confusion for English-speaking visitors: the Marugamemachi Shopping Arcade, the long glass-roofed street often shown in photographs of Kagawa, is in Takamatsu, not in Marugame. Hamamachi arcade in Marugame is a different and much smaller street, and the Shigemoto shop is here.
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Q&A
- Can you go inside the Shigemoto Fruit Shop Store, and is there an admission fee?
- The interior is not regularly open and there is no ticketed admission. The exterior can be viewed free of charge at any time from the public arcade. The building has been opened for occasional temporary events, but these are announced locally and follow no fixed schedule.
- How do you reach the Shigemoto Fruit Shop Store from JR Marugame Station?
- Leave the station on the south side, enter the Hamamachi arcade, and walk roughly two minutes. The address is 115-2 Hamamachi, Marugame City. The shop is on the arcade frontage with a black second-floor wall that is hard to mistake.
- Why is the Shigemoto Fruit Shop Store considered culturally significant?
- Its second-floor wall combines black lime plaster with black glazed tile, a finish the Agency for Cultural Affairs records as appearing only in limited numbers in Marugame and Tadotsu. It was registered in 2006 under the criterion for buildings that would be difficult to reproduce.
- Is photography allowed at the Shigemoto Fruit Shop Store?
- Photographing the exterior from the public arcade is not restricted. The building is private property, so photographing into any open interior or obstructing the walkway should be avoided.
- What else is worth seeing near the Shigemoto Fruit Shop Store?
- Marugame Castle is about fifteen minutes' walk south and retains one of Japan's twelve surviving original keeps. The Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art faces the station. The Horike Clock Shop and the Hogetsudo South Wing, both registered buildings, are within the same walkable district.
Basic Information
| Name | Shigemoto Fruit Shop Store (重元果物店店舗) |
|---|---|
| Location | 115-2 Hamamachi, Marugame City, Kagawa Prefecture |
| Designation | National Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure), registration no. 37-0308 |
| Year Designated | Registered 18 October 2006 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Six ken frontage by three ken depth; building area 59 m²; two storeys, timber frame, hipped-and-gabled roof in hongawarabuki tile |
| Owner | Private individual |
| Public Access | Exterior visible free of charge from the Hamamachi arcade; interior not regularly open |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database (Agency for Cultural Affairs) — Shigemoto Kudamonoten Tenpo
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00005922
- Cultural Heritage Online — Shigemoto Kudamonoten Tenpo
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/118997
- Kagawa Prefectural Board of Education — List of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in Kagawa
- https://www.pref.kagawa.lg.jp/kenkyoui/shogaigakushu/bunkazai/culturalassets/culturalassets_16.html
- Agency for Cultural Affairs — Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (Structures)
- https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkazai/shokai/yukei_kenzobutsu/toroku_yukei.html
- Marugame City Tourism Association — Official Site
- https://www.love-marugame.jp/
Last verified: 2026.08.09