Ito Family Residence Household Goods Storehouse and Weighing Room

A Room for Weighing, Named in the Register

The Ito Family Residence Household Goods Storehouse and Weighing Room in Ushita, Gosen City, Niigata Prefecture, is a Dozo-zukuri building of 1876 that was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 12 July 2005.

East of the rice storehouse comes the weighing room, and beyond it the household goods storehouse, the three running in one line. A Geya lean-to continues across all three north faces, so from the front the group reads as a single long wall. The storehouse rises 2 storeys in earthen-walled construction under a separately framed roof; the weighing room is plastered over only on its south face, and the whole is tiled in Sangawara-buki pantiles. The building area is 114 square metres.

In 1915 the building was moved bodily and extended by Hikiya, the technique of shifting a standing frame on rollers. The point was to lengthen the row of storehouses without breaking it.

What the Weighing Room Was For

Rice arrived from tenants in bales. It had to be checked, weighed, and carried into store, and a room was built for that work alone. The function was specific enough that it entered the name under which the building is registered. It is floor-plan evidence for what the Ito family did as Shōya, village headmen, in the later Edo period.

The other end of the building held household goods, the tools and furnishings of the house. A store for the crop and a store for domestic possessions share one structure, with the workroom between them. The Ito Family Residence Household Goods Storehouse and Weighing Room is listed as a single building carrying three distinct uses.

The listing criterion is contribution to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes careful work inside and out, and a building that joins with the rice storehouse to give the estate its long frontage.

Two Kinds of Wall on One Elevation

The finish changes as the use changes. Only the south face of the weighing room is plastered over; elsewhere the posts stay visible in Shinkabe, the exposed-frame treatment. A room people walked in and out of all day did not need to be sealed in earth like a strongroom. The wall construction states the purpose of each part.

Under the continuous lean-to along the north side, loads could be moved in and out clear of rain and snow. From the rice storehouse to the far end, the work stayed under cover. In a district that fills with snow each winter, that is a practical answer worked into the plan.

Visiting the Household Goods Storehouse and Weighing Room

The Ito Family Residence Household Goods Storehouse and Weighing Room sits within the grounds and its interior is closed. Stand in front of the gate and look east: the north elevation, running on from the rice storehouse, comes into view as one length. The scale of the row registers better from that position than from any single building.

The grounds cannot be entered. Keep photography to exterior shots taken from the public road. The Lifelong Learning Division of the Gosen City Board of Education, on 0250-42-5195, can confirm current conditions.