Hatta Shodayu Sake Shop Storehouse and Kuramae

A Shop Storehouse with a Tea Room on Top

The Storehouse and Kuramae of the Hatta Shodayu Sake Shop (八太正太夫酒店蔵及び蔵前, Hatta Shōdayū Saketen Kura oyobi Kuramae) is a two-storey mid-Meiji commercial building at 1094 Karasu-cho in Tsu City, Mie Prefecture, registered as a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on 29 March 2013. It stands on the western edge of a merchant compound facing the lane, and it is the one building of the four here that a passer-by is likely to stop for.

The reason is the silhouette. The register describes the upper floor of the front section as taking on the appearance of a boro (望楼), the raised lookout of the sort found on lighthouses, fire towers and Meiji-era public buildings. On a delta this flat, a second storey that rises a little further than its neighbours reads from a long way off.

Two Buildings Working as One

What looks like a single structure is a pairing, and the pairing is the point.

The rear half is the mise-gura (店蔵), a shop storehouse built in dozo-zukuri, the thick-walled technique in which a timber frame is packed with layers of earth and finished in lime plaster. It has two storeys under a gabled roof of sangawara pantiles. Earthen walls of this kind were built for fire, and a sake dealer holding stock in a dense wooden town had good reason to want them.

In front of it stands the kuramae (蔵前), literally the space before the storehouse, a two-storey timber structure roofed in the hipped yosemune form, also in pantile. The kuramae was the working face of the operation: where transactions happened, where goods were checked before going into or out of the earthen vault behind. Together the two occupy a building area of 46 square metres, which is small, and repays a close look rather than a wide one.

The upstairs of the kuramae is where the building departs from ordinary commercial practice. The register records a small room there finished in sukiya manner, the restrained aesthetic of the tea house, with its slender members, unpainted timber and deliberate avoidance of display. A merchant put a tea-house room above his shop counter, at the highest point on the property, looking out over the mouth of the Kumozu River.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs does not record why. The combination speaks for itself: business below, leisure above, and a view of the water that paid for both.

The Wall Facing the Lane

The exterior treatment follows a formula used all along this frontage. Above, shirashikkui white lime plaster laid as okabe, the great-wall method in which the plaster covers the structural posts completely rather than leaving them exposed. Below, dark shitamiita weatherboarding to about waist height, protecting the plaster where splash and knocks do the most damage.

White above, dark below, repeated across four registered buildings in a row. The national register's assessment turns on precisely this: the building was accepted under criterion one, contributing to the historic landscape of the nation, in the 74th round of registrations, with register number 24-0128. The judgement is about the street, not the object alone.

The fabric dates to the middle Meiji period, between roughly 1883 and 1897, with repair work carried out in 2010. Anyone comparing the plaster here against older, more weathered surfaces elsewhere in the district should keep that recent campaign in mind.

Practicalities

The property is privately owned and the national register lists no public opening, no hours and no admission arrangement. Treat this as a building to be seen from the lane.

That is less of a limitation than it sounds, because the exterior is the registered value. Stand on the west side of the compound in late afternoon, when low light rakes across the plaster and picks out the join between the gabled shop storehouse behind and the hipped kuramae in front. Look up at the second-floor openings of the kuramae and consider what the room behind them was for.

Photography from the public road carries no restriction. Do not enter the compound and do not shoot into the openings.

Access is by bus. Mie Kotsu route 32 runs from the east exit of Tsu Station toward Karasu Park, reaching Karasu Jinja-mae in about 35 to 45 minutes; route 21 covers the same stop from Hisai Station. Departures are sparse, so plan the return leg first. Takachaya on the JR Kisei Line is the nearest railway station at roughly four kilometres. Free parking is available at Karasu Shrine nearby. Karasu Historical Museum, which holds material on the naval air training corps stationed in this town during the Pacific War, is another local stop if the visit is being built into a half day.