Former Mikawaya Shoten

Former Mikawaya Shoten

The Former Mikawaya Shoten (旧三河屋商店, Kyū Mikawaya Shōten) in Higashimachi, Nagano City, Nagano Prefecture, is the late Edo-period house of a rapeseed-oil maker and wholesaler, and its four buildings, the store and residence, a storehouse, a miso storehouse and a warehouse, were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on October 18, 2006 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). They carry the consecutive registration numbers 20-0260 to 20-0263, all four registered as models of design.

According to the Nagano City Museum, the business traded as the oil wholesaler Mikawaya Shozaemon Shoten and sold rapeseed oil (mizu-abura) and candles from around the mid-Edo period. Until the years before the Second World War it was the only large-scale oil works in Nagano City, and in the Taisho era it produced about 660 koku of oil a year, or 119,057 liters.

A Zenkoji Merchant House, Moved Rather Than Lost

The Former Mikawaya Shoten stood on Higashimachi-dori, about 100 meters east of Chuo-dori, the main approach to Zenkoji Temple (Nagano City Museum). When a city road-widening scheme took in the plot, the house was kept as one of the representative merchant houses of the Zenkoji temple town.

The main house and three storehouses were saved. Work began in February 1996 and was finished in March 1997: the group was turned through 90 degrees and slid by hikiya (moving a building whole, without dismantling it) onto the land to the east, so that it now faces north onto the widened road (Nagano City Museum). The Agency's records likewise date all four buildings to the late Edo period, moved by hikiya in 1996.

Tradition holds that the main house was rebuilt over about three years right after the Zenkoji Earthquake of 1847 (Nagano City Museum).

How the Four Buildings of the Former Mikawaya Shoten Are Laid Out

The store and residence on the street front is a two-storey Nuriya-zukuri townhouse nine ken wide, a ken being one traditional bay (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The storehouse stands behind it, the miso storehouse faces the storehouse, and the warehouse lines up beyond the miso storehouse.

All three rear buildings are Dozo-zukuri storehouses with gabled roofs of pantiles and white Shikkui plaster walls; the storehouse and the miso storehouse have two storeys, the warehouse one. The Nagano City Museum describes the whole compound as built against fire, with plaster carried up under the eaves and a ring of storehouses and high plastered walls around the inner courtyard to stop flames spreading from neighboring houses.

Until the war years, a trolley line about 33 meters long ran from the shop front across the courtyard to the rear storehouse, the shimeya, to carry out the rapeseed oil (Nagano City Museum). Each building is described on its own page.

Visiting the Former Mikawaya Shoten

The Former Mikawaya Shoten is open to the public as the Oirai-kan (門前商家ちょっ蔵おいらい館), an annex of the Nagano City Museum, with displays on the merchant house, a re-created choba (the counting room where the accounts were kept), a gallery of work by the Matsushiro-born photographer Shimada Kinsuke and a gallery for local exhibitions (Nagano City Museum). It is open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and admission is free.

It is closed on Mondays (or the next day when Monday is a public holiday), on the day after a public holiday unless that falls on a Saturday or Sunday, for five weekdays in the second week of July, and from December 29 to January 3; the closing days vary a little from year to year (Nagano City Museum).

The nearest bus stop is Zenkoji Daimon, about a 3-minute walk away (Nagano City Museum). Alpico Kotsu buses on the Zenkoji line run there from the Zenkoji exit of JR Nagano Station (Nagano Convention and Visitors Bureau). There is no parking. The local gallery is rented out for exhibitions, so check the museum's page for what is on.