Miyagino Natto Factory Boiler Room

The Factory's Source of Heat

The Miyagino Natto Factory Boiler Room (宮城野納豆製造所ボイラー室, Miyagino Nattō Seizōsho Boirāshitsu) is a single-storey timber building of about 1950 at the Miyagino Natto Factory in Ichomachi, Miyagino-ku, Sendai, housing the lignite-fired boiler that supplied heat for cooking soybeans, and was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on September 10, 2019.

It adjoins the south side of the Break Room. The roof is a Kirizuma-zukuri gable in iron sheet on a timber truss, the walls are Shitami-itabari clapboard, and inside is one mortar-floored Doma room whose southern half is taken up by a brick boiler designed to burn lignite.

A brick chimney rises against the south wall outside, and a toilet is attached to the east wall. The building is timber-framed with a metal-sheet roof and a building area of 31 square metres. It was extended in the mid-Showa period and renovated in 2005.

Why It Was Registered

Registered as number 04-172 for its contribution to the historic landscape, it is described by the Agency for Cultural Affairs as an ancillary building that conveys the power plant of a modern food factory.

According to Sendai's Board of Education, the boiler provided heat for boiling the beans, among other uses. Natto making begins with cooking large quantities of soybeans, and here you can see both where that heat came from and what it was made from, with the building and the boiler still together.

The fuel was lignite, a low-grade, soft brown coal. It was stored in the Lignite Hut to the southeast, and the survival of both the Miyagino Natto Factory Boiler Room and its fuel shed is what makes this part of the site so legible.

What to Look For

The brick chimney on the south side is the giveaway. A column of red brick set against grey clapboard announces from the outside that this is where the fire is kept.

The boiler inside is brick as well. Setting a masonry furnace inside a timber shell and taking the flue straight outside keeps the flames well away from the wooden structure.

Its position makes sense too. The Miyagino Natto Factory Boiler Room extends south from the production building's east wing by way of the Break Room, and the Lignite Hut stands on the southeast boundary. Fuel came in from the street to the hut, was burned here, and the heat went to the workroom: the whole energy chain sits on the east side of the site.

Visiting

The building is part of a working factory. Its interior is not open, and the walled site cannot be entered.

No notice on photography was found. Directions and contact details for enquiries are on the Miyagino Natto Factory page.