Hatakoshi Family Residence Archive Storehouse

What the Hatakoshi Family Residence Archive Storehouse Is

The Hatakoshi Family Residence Archive Storehouse (波多腰家住宅文庫蔵, Hatakoshi-ke Jūtaku Bunkogura) is an earthen-walled storehouse built in 1931 in the Hata district of Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, and entered on the national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 28 April 2000 under the number 20-0042.

It stands behind the main house, facing west toward it across an inner courtyard. A 2-storey dozo-zukuri storehouse on a foundation of dressed stone, it has a building area of 17 square metres and an okiyane gabled roof of pantiles.

A bunkogura is a storehouse for a family's books, papers and treasured objects. While the working storehouses line the yard to the north, this one sits just behind the main house, inside the domestic part of the compound.

A Finish Hard to Reproduce

The Hatakoshi Family Residence Archive Storehouse was registered as a building that would be difficult to reproduce. Among the storehouses on the property, it is the one most clearly designed to be looked at.

The walls are finished in white shikkui lime plaster, with a dado of namako-kabe. The second-floor windows in both gables are framed with decorative mouldings, and above each sits the crest of the house name. The Hatakoshi trade under the name Maruhachi.

The sources differ on its date. The national register gives 1931, and the ridge-timber inscription quoted on the Matsumoto City page records that Shujiro began it in the Taisho era and that it was finished on 23 July 1931 in the time of Yaroku. The same city page also states, in one sentence, that it was raised in 1933, so the sources do not agree. This article follows the inscription and the national register.

The Gable Windows

The windows in the gables are the thing to see. Framed in layered mouldings against the white plaster and crowned with the house crest, they are where the decoration of the building is concentrated.

Then look down at the namako-kabe dado: flat tiles fixed to the wall, their joints built up in rounded ridges of plaster, forming a black and white lattice at the base.

Notice too the dressed-stone foundation, which lifts the storehouse cleanly off the ground and sharpens its profile on the courtyard side.

Visiting the Hatakoshi Family Residence Archive Storehouse

The archive storehouse faces the inner courtyard behind the main house, the most private part of the compound. It belongs to a private home, and neither the building nor the courtyard is open. Please do not enter the property.

Directions and viewing conditions for the whole compound are on the Hatakoshi Family Residence page.