Nakagawa Family Residence Storehouse

About the Nakagawa Family Residence Storehouse

The Nakagawa Family Residence Storehouse (中川家住宅蔵, Nakagawa-ke Jūtaku Kura) is a 2-storey earthen-walled storehouse built in 1915 in Imazushicho, Nara City, Nara Prefecture, and entered on Japan's register of Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on December 19, 2014. It has a tiled roof and a building area of 84 m², and was renovated in 2001.

It stands at the far western end of the Nakagawa plot. Built in the same year as the main house, it is the large fireproof store where a family of textile merchants kept its goods and valuables.

Size and Roof of the Nakagawa Storehouse

The Nakagawa Storehouse is set with its ridge running north to south and measures 12 m by 4.9 m in plan. The Agency for Cultural Affairs sums it up as a large storehouse with a solid, weighty presence, and Nara City also stresses its size.

The main roof is a gable in the Kirizuma-zukuri form, laid in Hongawarabuki, the heavy style that alternates flat and round tiles. Along the east side runs a lean-to Geya roofed in lighter Sangawara-buki pantiles. The change of tile marks the line between the storehouse proper and its added shelter.

Walls and Doorway of the Nakagawa Storehouse

The walls are finished in white Shikkui plaster, with a thick plaster band called a Hachimaki wrapped beneath the eaves. Windows open on both floors. On the south wall below waist height, and across the whole west wall, vertical boards protect the plaster from rain.

Around the doorway the plaster is modeled into a torii-waku, a frame of two posts and a lintel that recalls the shape of a shrine gate and sets the entrance off against the white wall.

Nara City notes that, although this is a traditional Dozo-zukuri earthen storehouse, it uses some modern materials: the foundation is brick and the windows have iron shutters. That brick hidden at the foot of the white walls echoes the brick wall elsewhere on the Nakagawa property.

Why the Nakagawa Storehouse Is Registered

The Nakagawa Family Residence Storehouse was registered as a building that contributes to the historic landscape of the nation. Nara City values it as part of the layout of a Taisho-era Nara townhouse compound.

If the main house on the lane is the public face of the property, the Nakagawa Storehouse closes it off at the deepest point of the plot. Its pairing of a traditional earthen storehouse with a brick foundation and iron window shutters is very much of its Taisho-period moment.

Seeing the Nakagawa Storehouse

The Nakagawa Storehouse stands at the back of the plot and cannot be seen from the lane, and the interior is not open to the public as of October 2026. The compound hosts reservation-only cultural programs as Machiya Imazushi, but the operator's pages say nothing about access to the storehouse. Ask whether its exterior can be seen when you book. Directions and booking details are on the Nakagawa Family Residence (Nara City) page.