Ito Family Residence Rice Storehouse

A Storehouse Facing North

The Ito Family Residence Rice Storehouse in Ushita, Gosen City, Niigata Prefecture, is a single-storey Dozo-zukuri storehouse of 1879 that was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 12 July 2005.

It stands southeast of the main house and faces north, about 6 ken (roughly 11 metres) along the ridge and about 2 and a half ken (roughly 4.5 metres) across, with a building area of 51 square metres. The Kirizuma-zukuri roof is tiled in Sangawara-buki pantiles and set on its own frame above the walls.

Inside, the floor is boarded. A free-standing post rises slightly east of the ridge line, with studs to the south of it forming a loose partition. The divisions follow the work: bales were stacked in separate lots, and the posts mark where.

Where a Headman's Wealth Was Kept

The Ito family served as Shōya, village headmen, in the later Edo period. Rice came in as tax and tenant rent, went into store, and was sold when the price suited. The Ito Family Residence Rice Storehouse was the end of that line. Among the six buildings only the household goods storehouse of 1876 is older.

The listing criterion is contribution to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs singles out the care of the work: cut-stone footings, a plaster band under the eaves, and a drip moulding at waist height. Nothing was skimped because the building was only a store.

Reading the Wall from Top to Bottom

The interest of the exterior is in how it sheds water. The band beneath the eaves and the projecting moulding at the waist both throw rain clear of the earthen wall. They look ornamental and are not: in snow country, how water leaves the lower wall decides how long a storehouse lasts.

Cut stone raises the whole box off the ground and cuts the damp rising from it. Study the Ito Family Residence Rice Storehouse from the outside by letting the eye fall in order, from the eaves band down the white plaster to the drip moulding and the stone, and the defences against rain and snow line up in sequence.

Visiting the Rice Storehouse

The Ito Family Residence Rice Storehouse stands inside the grounds and its interior is closed. Its north face lies east of the front gate and inner fence, so a visitor standing before the gate can turn east and take in the north wall together with the weighing room and household goods storehouse that continue in line beyond it.

The grounds cannot be entered. Keep photography to exterior shots from the public road. In late autumn, once the rice is cut, the outline of the estate also reads well from the field side.