Haruo Nakamura's Residence Storehouse

Twenty-Three Square Metres

Nakamura Haruo Family Residence Storehouse (中村治男家住宅土蔵, Dozo) is a two-story earthen-walled storehouse at 117 Kamiyanagihara-cho, Muromachi-dori north of Teranouchi, Kamigyo Ward, Kyoto, built in the late Meiji period, and entered on the national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 31 July 2007.

Its footprint is two ken square, about 3.6 metres each way, giving a building area of 23 square metres. On a Kyoto street this is a small object. It was registered on the same day as the main house standing to its south, and under the same criterion, which says something about how the assessors were looking: not at two separate buildings but at a frontage that works as a pair.

A storehouse in a merchant household was not an outbuilding in the sense of being marginal. It was where the assets lived. The main house was timber and paper and could be expected to burn; the storehouse was clay and was expected not to. Documents, textiles, seasonal furnishings, and anything of value went behind those walls. In the textile blocks north of Teranouchi, where the Nakamura family dealt first in sake and later in property, the storehouse held the part of the business that could not be replaced.

The Decision to Turn Sideways

Most storehouses in Kyoto present a gable end to the street. The reason is practical: a storehouse is usually deeper than it is wide, tucked into the depth of a lot, so the short end faces out.

This one does the opposite. Its gabled roof turns its long eaves side to the street, showing the broad face rather than the triangle. On a plan two ken square the choice was open, since neither side is longer, and it changes the effect entirely. A gable end reads as a wall with a peak. The eaves side reads as a horizontal band under a horizontal roofline, which sits comfortably beside the eaves of the main house next door. The two buildings line up rather than jostle.

Below the eaves on the street side, windows open on both floors. The national record singles them out as the accent of the exterior, which is a plain way of saying that they carry the composition. Two openings in a mass of white plaster are what keep a small clay box from reading as a blank wall.

The wall surfaces are handled in two materials with a clear division. Above, white lime plaster over the clay body. Below, at the base, weatherboarding coated in bengara, the iron-oxide pigment that gives a deep red brown. The reasons are functional first: the base takes splash and knocks, boards resist both better than plaster, and bengara protects the timber while colouring it. The visual result, a dark red band under a white field, is one of the recurring notes of the Kyoto street. A tiled pent roof runs above the boarding on the ground floor, throwing water clear of it.

The entrance faces east, into the courtyard, not the street. This is the giveaway that the storehouse belongs to the household rather than to the shop. Goods came in from inside the property, through the tsuboniwa, out of public view. The street face has windows and no door: it is an elevation, not an entrance.

Registered, Not Designated

Japan protects buildings through two systems of different strength. National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties are designated: selective, permit-controlled, substantially funded. Registered Tangible Cultural Properties fall under the lighter framework created by the 1996 revision of the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties, effective 1 October that year, in which owners notify the authorities of alterations instead of applying for permission. The scheme was built for the very large number of buildings from the Meiji period onward that were disappearing before assessment, and Kyoto's townhouses and their storehouses were prominent among them.

Eligibility generally begins at fifty years of age plus one of three criteria. This storehouse was registered under the first, contribution to the historic character of the landscape, as was the main house. For a 23 square metre outbuilding this is the only criterion that could apply, and it is the correct one. Nothing about the construction is rare. What is increasingly rare is the pairing: a main house and its storehouse still standing together on their original plot, presenting a continuous frontage to the street.

That is worth stating clearly, because it explains why small buildings get registered at all. The register is not only a list of remarkable objects. It is partly a way of holding street frontages together.

Seeing It

The storehouse stands within a private residence and is not open. The Kyoto association of owners of registered cultural properties records the property as closed to the public, in use as a private home. There are no visiting days, and since the entrance faces the inner courtyard, the door itself is not visible from outside.

The street elevation is another matter, and it is the registered value. It can be seen from the public road at any hour, free of charge. Stand across Muromachi-dori and take in both buildings at once: the main house with its large door, projecting lattice, and plastered upper window, and the storehouse to the north with its horizontal eaves line, red base, and two windows. Reading them as one frontage is the point of the visit.

Reach the area by city bus to the Horikawa Teranouchi stop, a few minutes on foot, or from Imadegawa Station on the Karasuma subway line, about fifteen minutes northwest. Photography from the street is unrestricted; please do not photograph into the property.

To see the inside of a storehouse of this kind, walk to Nishijin Kurashi no Bijutsukan Tondaya, a registered kimono wholesaler's house of 1885 that opens to visitors and includes three storehouses among its buildings, with guided tours, kimono wearing, and tea available. Booking is required and socks are needed for entry. Nearer still, the Chado Research Center at Urasenke on Ogawa-dori north of Teranouchi is open 9:30 to 16:30, last entry 16:00, closed Mondays and between exhibitions, and the Teranouchi temples of Myokenji, Honpoji, and Hokyoji fill out an afternoon on foot.