Chitose Bunko

Kawakita Handeishi's Storehouse on Mount Chitose

The Chitose Bunko (千歳文庫) is a four-storey reinforced-concrete storehouse built in 1930 by Kawakita Handeishi within his residence on Mount Chitose, Tarumi, Tsu City, Mie Prefecture, to hold the family collection, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on March 2, 2006. It is still used as the storehouse of the Sekisui Museum (Sekisui Museum).

The Agency for Cultural Affairs records it as four storeys with a copper roof and a building area of 157 square metres; registration number 24-0057, owned by the Sekisui Kaikan Foundation (now the Sekisui Museum).

Kawakita Handeishi and the Sekisui Museum

According to Tsu City, Kawakita Handeishi was born in 1878 as heir to the 15th head of the Kawakita family, wealthy cotton merchants founded in the 1620s to 1640s with a shop in Edo's Odenmacho. He headed the Hyakugo Bank and held other posts while pursuing tea, painting and haiku, and built a world of his own in pottery.

According to the Sekisui Museum, Handeishi founded the Sekisui Kaikan Foundation in 1930 to promote local culture and welfare. The museum moved to Mount Chitose in 2011 and shows the Kawakita family collection and Handeishi's works. The architect, Maeda Kenjiro, designed the Takashimaya Nihonbashi store and the Kyoto City Museum of Art; the builder is said to have been the Ando company.

Why It Was Registered

The Chitose Bunko was registered as a building that contributes to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes its sturdy, restrained exterior. The Sekisui Museum explains that raised floors, double walls and double windows, well suited to a storehouse, keep humidity changes gentle through the year.

What to Look For

The Chitose Bunko is long from north to south, with a semicircular south end and a stair tower on the west. Its walls are faced with brick tiles, windows sit in the same place on every floor, and the third and fourth floors have balconies on the south side; the roof is copper on steel trusses (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

According to the museum, it has a total floor area of 636.53 square metres and originally had a lift, said to be only the second in Mie Prefecture. In 2009 it was strengthened against earthquakes by adding concrete on the inside.

Visiting

The interior of the Chitose Bunko is closed because it is still a storehouse, but you can view the building in the woods from the slope leading from the car park to the Sekisui Museum entrance and from its glass-walled lobby (Sekisui Museum, Tsu City).

The museum opens from 10:00 to 17:00 (last entry 16:30) and closes on Mondays (the next day if a holiday), between exhibitions and at New Year; adults 500 yen. It is a 12-minute walk from JR Akogi Station, or take a Mie Kotsu bus from Tsu Station to Aotaniguchi and walk 8 minutes (Mie Tourism).