Hatakoshi Family Residence Rice Storehouse

What the Hatakoshi Family Residence Rice Storehouse Is

The Hatakoshi Family Residence Rice Storehouse (波多腰家住宅米蔵, Hatakoshi-ke Jūtaku Komegura) is an earthen-walled storehouse framed in 1879 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 20-0037.

It belongs to the row of storehouses running east to west on the north side of the main house, with the miso storehouse against its west end and the barn against its east. Built in dozo-zukuri, the thick fireproof earthen construction of Japanese storehouses, it rises 2 storeys over a plan of 7 by 3 ken bays and a building area of 93 square metres. No other storehouse on the property is as large.

Its date is documented rather than estimated. According to Matsumoto City, an ink inscription on the ridge-support timber records that it was raised on 8 October 1879, in the time of the family head Hachikuro (八九郎).

Why It Was Registered

The Hatakoshi Family Residence Rice Storehouse was registered as a building that would be difficult to reproduce. The Agency for Cultural Affairs points to the quality of the earthen construction and to the inscription that fixes the date.

The lower walls are faced with roof tiles, and the pointing between them forms a hexagonal, tortoiseshell pattern. Tiling guards the part of the wall most exposed to rain splash; setting the joints out as hexagons instead of a plain grid is extra work, and it shows.

The roof is a gable of the okiyane type: a roof frame built separately and set on top of the sealed earthen body. At the front, the lean-to porch (geya) is itself plastered over, so the doorway too is wrapped in earth.

What to Look For

Start with the tiled dado. The pale hexagonal joints stand out against the dark tile and give the lower half of the wall an even, repeating pattern.

Then follow the line where wall meets roof. Because the roof is framed on its own, the building reads as an earthen box with a roof placed upon it.

Seen within the row, the difference in scale is plain. The miso storehouse to the west is 2 ken wide and the barn to the east is a single-storey shed 9 ken long; the two-storey rice storehouse, 7 ken long, anchors the line.

Visiting the Hatakoshi Family Residence Rice Storehouse

The storehouse stands in the working yard north of the main house, closed off from the forecourt by a fence and gate. It is part of a private home and the interior is not open. Stay off the property and look only from outside it.

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