Matsumoto Sake Brewery Brick Warehouse

A Factory Warehouse the Brewer Inherited

Matsumoto Sake Brewery Brick Warehouse (松本酒造煉瓦倉庫) is a single-storey brick storehouse in Yokooji Misu Daikokucho, Fushimi Ward, Kyoto City, built in the late Meiji era (1898 to 1912) and listed as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 24 December 2013. It stands south of the Daikokugura on an east-west axis, covers 117 square metres, and was renovated in 2011.

It was never meant for sake. According to Kyoto City, when Matsumoto came to Fushimi it bought a former pharmaceutical factory and kept that plant's late-Meiji brick warehouse and chimney as working parts of the brewery. The building was here before the brewer was. Which company ran the factory is not stated in the published sources.

The Daikokugura next door dates from 1923, so the warehouse is more than a decade older. Together with the chimney, it is the oldest of the registered buildings on the brewery side of the site.

Parapets, a Round Window and Shallow Arches

The walls are brick and the roof is a gabled one of sangawara pantiles. You would not guess the roof shape from the ends, though. At both gables the brickwork rises as a parapet that hides the roof edge, and each parapet is pierced by a round window.

The doorway and the tall windows around the building are topped with segmental arches, shallow curves rather than full semicircles. At the crown of each, a keystone is modelled in mortar rather than cut from stone: the shape of masonry, achieved with render.

Inside is a single open room under Western-style roof trusses. The tiles on top are Japanese; the walls and openings follow the vocabulary of Meiji industrial building.

Why It Was Listed, and What to Look For

The warehouse was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that, with the chimney and the Daikokugura, it keeps something of the brewery's earlier appearance.

Look at the gable ends. The parapet with its round window announces, among the board-clad storehouses, a building from another period and another trade. Timber cladding and red brick meet at the boundary with the Daikokugura.

Look closely at the arched windows too. The mortar keystones read as a different texture from the brick around them, repeated window after window.

Seeing the Brick Warehouse

The interior is not open. Matsumoto does not run tours and the premises are private, so the warehouse is seen from outside.

From the Shin-Takasegawa side it appears just south of the Daikokugura and can be seen together with the brick chimney nearby. This is the only corner of the site where two brick structures stand together. Photographs are taken from the levee or the public road.