Hara Family Residence Rice Storehouse

The Largest Storehouse, on the Eastern Edge

Hara Family Residence Rice Storehouse (原家住宅米蔵, Hara-ke Jūtaku Kome-gura) is a single-storey timber storehouse built in 1910 in Nihongi, Konan Ward, Niigata City, extended in 1951, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 1 August 2016. It has a tiled gabled roof and a building area of 139 square metres.

It stands at the far eastern edge of the grounds, facing west, and measures 14 metres by 8 metres. The Agency for Cultural Affairs calls it imposing, and it is by far the largest of the family's storehouses.

A kome-gura was a storehouse for rice, which in a landed household could include rent paid in kind by tenant farmers as well as the family's own supply. Published sources say nothing about what this one stored.

Two Ways of Holding Up a Roof

The Agency's interest is in the roof framing. Where posts rise along an internal partition, the builders used traditional Wagoya framing; everywhere else they used a Western-style King post truss.

Wagoya stacks short struts on horizontal beams and works well when there is a post below to take the load. A king post truss triangulates the roof with a central vertical post and diagonal members, so it can span open floor with no posts beneath. The Hara Family Residence Rice Storehouse uses each system where it suits.

Both kinds of frame are clamped with furedome, braces that stop the framing from racking sideways or twisting. The Agency describes the combination as distinctive.

What to Look For

The real interest is overhead: Japanese and Western framing side by side under one roof, tied together by bracing.

From outside, it is the length that registers. At 14 metres, the west-facing front of the Hara Family Residence Rice Storehouse closes off the whole eastern side of the compound with a single long eave.

The extension of 1951 came about four decades after the original building of 1910. Published sources do not say which part of the building it covers.

Viewing the Rice Storehouse

The rice storehouse is closed to the public, and its interior, including the roof framing, cannot be visited.

It stands at the eastern edge of the grounds, facing west into the compound. We have not been able to confirm how much of it can be seen from the public road, and the grounds cannot be entered.