Hara Family Residence Tool Storehouse

A Timber Storehouse East of the Main House

Hara Family Residence Tool Storehouse (原家住宅道具蔵, Hara-ke Jūtaku Dōgu-gura) is a storehouse built in 1902 in Nihongi, Konan Ward, Niigata City, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 1 August 2016. It is a timber building, single-storey with a partial upper floor, under a tiled gabled roof, with a building area of 33 square metres.

It stands east of the main house and faces west. The miso storehouse, also facing west, stands right beside it, and the lean-to roof, or Geya, of the Hara Family Residence Tool Storehouse is swept down so that its line meets the front of the miso storehouse. A single-storey shed sits between the two.

Wood Dressed as Earth

This is not an earthen storehouse. The lower walls are clad in overlapping Shitami-itabari boarding, and above that the walls are Shinkabe, with the posts left visible. Yet the top of the wall carries a hachimaki plaster band, and the roof is of the oki-yane type, set on as a separate structure. Both are storehouse techniques, borrowed here to give a timber building the outline of a dozō.

The roof is framed with nobori-bari, rafter beams that follow the pitch of the roof, which makes room for the upper floor. Inside, the spaces between posts are lined with boards.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs credits the Hara Family Residence Tool Storehouse with setting off the old family's compound. Lined up with the miso storehouse, it gives the east side of the main house a tidy row of storage buildings.

What to Look For

On the outside, read the wall from bottom to top: board cladding, exposed posts, then the plaster band. From a distance the horizontal bands make this wooden building look very like an earthen storehouse.

Look also at the join with its neighbour. The eave of the lean-to lines up exactly with the front of the miso storehouse, so the two buildings present one face toward the main house.

Viewing the Tool Storehouse

The tool storehouse is closed to the public, and its interior cannot be visited.

It stands east of the main house, facing inward toward it. We have not been able to confirm how much of it can be seen from the public road, and the grounds cannot be entered.