Former Morita Family Residence Storehouse

A Household Storehouse Facing East

The Former Morita Family Residence Storehouse is a two storey Dozo-zukuri earthen walled store of the late Meiji era, built between 1898 and 1912 at Usaida in Noichicho, Konan City, Kochi Prefecture, and registered as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 6 March 2024. It covers 52 square metres under a tiled roof.

It stands west of the main house and faces east. This is a store for household goods rather than rice or farm tools, and its position beside the living quarters reflects that. The roof is an okiyane, a separate structure set on top of the thick walls rather than framed into them, gabled and laid with Sangawara-buki pantiles. Keeping roof and wall apart meant that in a fire the roof could burn away and drop clear while the plastered box beneath survived.

The southern half was added not long after building. The national register records the date as late Meiji with a late Taisho extension, and each floor is now divided into two rooms, so the seam of that addition still governs the plan.

Registered for Its Contribution to the Landscape

Five of the six structures registered here on 6 March 2024 were entered as contributing to the historic landscape of the country, and the Former Morita Family Residence Storehouse is one of them. The criterion asks not whether a building is a masterpiece on its own but whether it holds up a wider scene, in this case the walled compound as a whole.

The database is nonetheless specific about this one, calling it a storehouse rich in regional character. Seen as a Tosa building, it gathers up local habits of construction in a single small volume. Its register number is 39-0310.

Mizukiri-gawara, the Hachimaki Band, and Left Handed Pantiles

The walls are finished in Shikkui lime plaster, but the sill timber at the base is left exposed rather than plastered over. Many storehouses swallow every piece of wood inside the render; this one does not.

Horizontal courses of tile run around the wall face. These are mizukiri-gawara, projecting like small eaves so that rain is thrown clear of the plaster instead of running down it, and they are a common answer to Kochi's rainfall. Above them the wall carries a hachimaki, a raised plaster band that finishes the top. The effect is a white surface ruled by several strong horizontals rather than left blank.

The roof uses left handed pantiles, the mirror image of the usual lay. Follow the detail of the Former Morita Family Residence Storehouse and you are reading the working habits of western Japanese country builders rather than anything imported.

Seeing the Storehouse

The Former Morita Family Residence Storehouse stands inside the compound, west of the main house. The road frontage is made up of the front gate, the earthen wall and the side gate, so the storehouse is behind them and cannot be seen whole from the public way. The interior is normally closed.

To enter the grounds, or to photograph inside them, contact the Cultural Promotion and Protection Section of the Konan City Board of Education, Lifelong Learning Division, at the Cultural Properties Centre, telephone 0887-54-2296. The city held an open session at the buildings on 3 February 2024.

Directions and general visiting conditions are on the Former Morita Family Residence page. Details confirmed on 13 September 2026.