Tanaka Honke Museum Archive Storehouse

What the Tanaka Honke Museum Archive Storehouse Is

The Tanaka Honke Museum Archive Storehouse (田中本家博物館文庫蔵, bunko-gura) is a late Edo-period three-storey clay-walled storehouse in the northwest of the Tanaka merchant estate in Suzaka City, Nagano Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 19 September 2003.

It is 14.5 metres long and covers 80 square metres, and it is the only three-storey building among the registered twenty. The ridge runs east to west; the west end is finished as an hip-and-gable, the east end as a plain gable, under pantiles. The Corner Storehouse adjoins it on the west and the Miso Storehouse on the east.

Bunko means a place for books and papers. A family that kept records of domain business and trade for generations needed a secure home for ledgers and deeds.

Why the Archive Storehouse Was Registered

The Tanaka Honke Museum Archive Storehouse was registered as contributing to the historic landscape. It rises above the rest of the north row and firms up the outline of the estate toward its western corner.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs bases its dating on the roof structure: thick boards laid from a finished ridge beam to the purlins, a method it associates with the end of the Edo period. The same framing appears in the New Storehouse further east.

A National Museum of Japanese History study, however, cites a record that only one storehouse survived the Suzaka uprising fire of 1870, so the sources do not agree on how much of the row is pre-Meiji.

What to Look For: Two Different Roof Ends

Compare the two ends of the roof. The west end is hip-and-gable, the east end a simple gable. The west end is nearer the corner of the estate, and the more formal roof form seems to face that way on purpose.

The walls are white lime plaster, with weatherboard skirting on the north and rough clay left on the ground floor of the south side. The windows on the second and third floors have clay-covered shutters that could be closed in a fire to seal the store.

Plaster and bare clay, weatherboard and clay shutter: the finish changes face by face. Walk round with an eye on which faces look outward and which look into the estate, and the logic of the design becomes clear.

Visiting the Archive Storehouse

The Tanaka Honke Museum Archive Storehouse stands on the north edge of the estate. Its south face is seen from the lane of storehouse doors on the far side of the inner wall, and its three-storey height reads best from a few steps back.

As a store for documents, it is not normally open inside; ask at reception about access. Opening days and admission are on the Tanaka Honke Museum page.