Igarashi Shoten No. 2 Warehouse: A Western Truss in a Merchant's Back Yard
Two warehouses stand side by side in the rear yard of the Igarashi Shoten plot in Hadano. Both are timber, two storeys, 27 square metres of floor area, three bays by two bays, gabled and entered from the eaves side. Both went on the national register on the same day. Their carpenters solved the roof in completely different ways.
The No. 2 Warehouse occupies the gap between the shop and main house at the front and the No. 1 Warehouse behind, facing south, connected to its neighbour. Above its ceiling sits a king post truss: a tie beam spanning the full width, a vertical post rising from its centre to the ridge, and two inclined struts running down from that post to the beam. The Agency for Cultural Affairs record notes the point plainly, describing this as a warehouse that took up a new technique.
The building next door, put up in the same years by the same household, carries its roof on nobori-bari, beams pitched along the slope in the older manner. So the two structures sit within a few metres of each other, holding up almost identical roofs, one with a triangulated Western frame and one without.
Why the Truss Matters, and Why the Register Cared
The king post truss reached Japan with foreign engineers and the government's Meiji-era building programmes, and it spread through schools, factories, railway sheds and public halls before it ever reached the back yards of provincial shops. Its logic differs from traditional Japanese roof framing. A conventional wagoya stacks horizontal beams and short vertical struts, and the load travels downward through compression, the timber doing the work by sheer mass. A truss makes a rigid triangle, puts the tie beam into tension, and spans further on less material.
A hardware dealer in Hadano did not need to span further. Three bays by two bays is a small building. Choosing the truss anyway says something about who was building in this town in the years after the earthquake, and what carpenters had by then absorbed.
The walls carry a related signal. Like its neighbour, the No. 2 Warehouse is finished in mortar, but the scored joints that imitate stonework stop at waist height rather than running the full elevation. Someone made a decision about how much stone-effect this particular wall needed. The doorway is a pair of mortar-surfaced doors opening outward from the centre, and the upper floor takes a window on the south wall with two leaves that slide apart.
Registration came on 27 October 2017, in the 88th round, under number 14-246. Registered Tangible Cultural Property status dates from the 1996 reform of the cultural properties law, which created a lighter regime for buildings over fifty years old: notification rather than permission for exterior changes, plus tax relief and technical support. The criterion applied here is contribution to the historical landscape of the nation. The Agency dates the building to the early Showa era and gives its construction as somewhere between 1926 and 1934.
Reading the Site
Hadano grew on tobacco leaf, cultivated across the plain below the Tanzawa range from the late Edo period into the early twentieth century. The Yotsukado crossing in the Honcho district was its commercial centre, and the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 burned most of it. Reconstruction brought wider roads and a generation of shopkeepers who wanted to be seen rebuilding in something that would not burn again. Mortar-clad timber, dressed in classical or Art Deco costume, became the local idiom.
Igarashi Shoten sold aramono, sundries and dried goods, and the family kept its storehouses. Five of them survive behind the shop, registered in 2017 as four items alongside the main building.
The interiors are closed. The plot is a private home and the warehouses are not visitable, so the sequence of five storehouses running back from the street is something you infer rather than tour.
The ground floor of the shop building has operated as Cafe Igarashi, and a visitor sitting there is inside the front half of the same story: the earth-floored shop space, the raised tatami area where business was transacted, the shelves of hardware left in place. Reports mention the upper floors being used as rented space, occasionally shown. Hours at a small family cafe are not guaranteed, so confirm before travelling.
Standing at the front and thinking your way to the back, the arrangement makes sense as a working economy. Shop at the street, dwelling above, storage behind, ordered by number. The No. 2 Warehouse is the nearest of them to the counter, which is what you would expect of the goods you reach for most often.
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Q&A
- What is a king post truss?
- A roof frame in which a horizontal tie beam spans the building, a vertical post rises from its centre to the ridge, and inclined struts brace between them, forming rigid triangles. It came to Japan through Western engineering in the Meiji era and appears here in a small provincial storehouse, which the national record singles out as notable.
- How does it differ from the No. 1 Warehouse next door?
- The two are near twins in plan and size. The No. 1 Warehouse uses nobori-bari, beams pitched along the roof slope in the traditional manner, and its mortar walls are scored into imitation stone across the whole elevation. The No. 2 Warehouse uses the truss and stops the scoring at waist height. It also stands closer to the shop, connected to No. 1.
- Is the warehouse open to visitors?
- No. The site is privately owned and the warehouses are not open. The cafe occupying the ground floor of the shop building at the front of the plot is the accessible part of the property.
- When exactly was it built?
- No single year is recorded. The national database gives the early Showa era and brackets construction between 1926 and 1934. Hadano City records it simply as completed in the early Showa period.
- What else in Hadano is worth pairing with a visit?
- The Honcho district holds a cluster of registered buildings from the same reconstruction years, including former shops and storehouses within walking distance. Hadano Station on the Odakyu Odawara Line is roughly five minutes away on foot, and the town also serves as a starting point for walks into the Tanzawa mountains.
Basic Information
| Name | Igarashi Shoten Dainigo Soko (Igarashi Shoten No. 2 Warehouse) |
|---|---|
| Category | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure) |
| Registration date | 27 October 2017 (88th round), registration no. 14-246 |
| Registration criterion | Contributing to the historical landscape of the nation |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Structure | Timber frame, two storeys; building area 27 m²; three bays by two bays; gabled roof, eaves-side entry; mortar walls scored to waist height; mortar-surfaced double doors; king post truss roof frame |
| Period | Early Showa (given as 1926 to 1934) |
| Type | Tertiary industry / building |
| Location | 2687 Honcho 2-chome, Hadano City, Kanagawa Prefecture |
| Owner | Private individual |
| Public access | Interior not open. The main shop building at the front of the plot has operated as a cafe; confirm hours in advance |
| Access | About a 5 minute walk northeast of Hadano Station on the Odakyu Odawara Line |
References
- National Database of Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Igarashi Shoten No. 2 Warehouse
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00011907
- Cultural Heritage Online: Igarashi Shoten No. 2 Warehouse
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/275392
- Hadano City: Igarashi Shoten (registered cultural properties)
- https://www.city.hadano.kanagawa.jp/soshiki/4/1019/8/5/3/2/1891.html
- Cultural Heritage Online: Igarashi Shoten No. 1 Warehouse
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/247351
Last verified: 2026.07.16