Shiohara Family Residence Rice Storehouse

About the Shiohara Family Residence Rice Storehouse

The Shiohara Family Residence Rice Storehouse (塩原家住宅米蔵, Shiohara-ke Jūtaku Komegura) is a clay-walled storehouse of around 1907 in Imai, Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, and it became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on March 2, 2004. It is the oldest of the four registered buildings on the Shiohara homestead, and tradition holds that it was used mainly to store rice and other grain.

The rice storehouse stands in front of the main house, to the right as you face it, and turns its own front toward the house. It is a two-story timber-framed building with a building area of 51 square meters, set on the front side of the homestead.

Why It Was Registered

The Shiohara Family Residence Rice Storehouse was registered as a model of architectural form. The other three Shiohara buildings were registered for their contribution to the historic landscape, so this storehouse is the only one on the property recognized for the quality of its design in its own right.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs calls it a carefully made storehouse. Built in the last years of the Meiji era, roughly a decade before the main house, it also suggests that the family began shaping the homestead with a granary, which says much about its roots in farming.

A Floating Roof and Namako Walls

The Shiohara rice storehouse has a Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles, built in the Okiyane manner. The roof is framed separately and set on top of the sealed earthen body of the storehouse, an arrangement generally credited with helping the body survive if the roof burns, and with making the roof easier to repair.

A Geya, a lean-to roof, shelters the front. The walls are finished in two bands: Namako-kabe below and white Shikkui lime plaster above. Namako walls are faced with flat tiles whose joints are filled with plaster raised into rounded ridges, so the base of the building is crossed by a lattice of white lines.

The detail that is easy to miss is that the namako finish wraps the posts of the lean-to as well. Even the lower parts of the posts carrying the front roof are dressed to match the walls, and it is care of this kind that earned the Shiohara Family Residence Rice Storehouse its reputation for fine workmanship.

Visiting the Shiohara Family Residence Rice Storehouse

The Shiohara Family Residence Rice Storehouse stands within a private home's grounds, and its interior is not open. Please view it only from outside without entering the property.

Because the rice storehouse faces inward toward the main house, its front, with the lean-to and namako-clad posts, is probably hard to see from outside the property. From the sides or back, look at how the eaves of the floating roof, the plastered walls and the namako base meet. Directions are on the Shiohara Family Residence page.