Former Onogi Family Residence Storage Shed

About the Former Onogi Family Residence Storage Shed

The Former Onogi Family Residence Storage Shed (旧大野木家住宅物置, Kyū Ōnogi-ke Jūtaku Monooki) is a single-storey timber outbuilding of 1939 southeast of the main house on the Onogi estate in Takehana Donomae-cho, Yamashina Ward, Kyoto City, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on July 25, 2011. It was renovated in 2003.

The shed has an east-west ridge and a hip-and-gable Irimoya-zukuri roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles. It measures 6.4 by 2.8 meters, with a building area of 25 square meters. Kyoto City describes it as a storage shed that doubled as a waiting area, and that second role is the key to the building.

Why It Was Registered: Two Faces Turned to the Guests

On the west side of the Former Onogi Family Residence Storage Shed, a lean-to eave, or Geya, shelters a low bench. The idea is the same as the Koshikake-machiai of a tea garden, where guests sit and wait to be called in by the host. Visitors to the Onogi house could pause here before being shown to the entrance.

What the Agency for Cultural Affairs points out is how the walls are finished. Only the west and south faces, the two that can be seen from the path to the entrance, have Namako-kabe tiling along their lower half, with the eaves and gables sealed in lime plaster. By giving the visible faces the same white plasterwork as the main house, the owners made even this small shed part of the formal approach.

The registration criterion is that the building contributes to the historic landscape of the country, and the care taken to match the main house is the reason a modest outbuilding qualified.

Highlights: The Namako Grid and the Waiting Bench

The namako-kabe on the Onogi storage shed is made of flat tiles fixed to the wall, with the joints built up in rounded ridges of lime plaster. The white joints draw a lattice across the dark tile, giving the low wall a crisp pattern.

Under the west eave, the low bench and the shadow cast by the deep overhang work together. Set between the castle-like main house and the light tea-style middle gate, the Former Onogi Family Residence Storage Shed gave guests a place to stop for a moment on the way in.

Visiting the Former Onogi Family Residence Storage Shed

The Former Onogi Family Residence Storage Shed stands inside the grounds beside the path to the entrance, so its tiled faces cannot be seen without entering. The wedding and restaurant business at the Former Onogi Family Residence ended at the end of September 2024, and the grounds are now closed.

The interior of the shed is not open either. Access and viewing conditions for the whole estate are covered on the Former Onogi Family Residence page.