Miyazaki Honten Warehouse No. 4

What Is Miyazaki Honten Warehouse No. 4?

Miyazaki Honten Warehouse No. 4 (宮崎本店第４倉庫, Miyazaki Honten Daiyon Soko) is a 2-storey timber warehouse from the early Showa period at the Miyazaki Honten sake and shochu works in Minamigomitsuka, Kusu-cho, Yokkaichi City, Mie Prefecture; it was registered as a national Registered Tangible Cultural Property on December 20, 1996.

It is L-shaped in plan, with a tiled roof and a building area of 655 square metres, which makes it the largest of the five registered buildings at Miyazaki Honten by a wide margin; the next largest, the Storage House, covers 480 square metres.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that Warehouse No. 4 is said to have been built as a sake brewing house. The Agency reports this as tradition rather than as documented fact, and we found no record of how the building was first used.

Why Miyazaki Honten Warehouse No. 4 Was Registered

Miyazaki Honten Warehouse No. 4 holds registration number 24-0005 from the first round of the system and was listed for contributing to the historic landscape.

In the Agency's words, its orderly exterior sets off the whole landscape of the brewery's warehouses. For a building of 655 square metres it presents a remarkably tidy face, and it holds together the view of the black-walled storehouses around it.

Three Warehouses in One: The Plan and Windows of Warehouse No. 4

Structurally, Miyazaki Honten Warehouse No. 4 is three warehouses joined in a row. From outside it reads as a single large building, but it is divided internally into three linked blocks.

Goods go in and out through loading doors on the north side. The other thing to notice is the windows, which are large on both floors. The Agency names the window arrangement, together with the northern loading doors, as what sets it apart from the other warehouses. We found no source recording how its use has changed over time.

The Agency locates Warehouse No. 4 as the eastern neighbour of a Storage House Building B. That building, according to the Agency's list of registrations cancelled after demolition, came off the register on September 26, 2000, so the registered building that once stood west of Warehouse No. 4 no longer survives.

Visiting Miyazaki Honten Warehouse No. 4

Miyazaki Honten Warehouse No. 4 is inside a working factory and is not open to the public. We could not confirm whether its northern loading doors or large windows can be seen from outside the grounds. Contact Miyazaki Honten in advance if you hope to visit or take photographs.

The works is about 9 minutes on foot from Kusu Station on the Kintetsu Nagoya Line.