Northern Culture Museum Carpenters' Workshop

Where the Carpenters Worked

The Northern Culture Museum Carpenters' Workshop (北方文化博物館大工場, Daikuba) in Somi, Konan Ward, Niigata City, is a single-storey timber workshop of 1883, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 28 April 2000.

The Northern Culture Museum Carpenters' Workshop stands at the northernmost point of the estate and covers 140 square metres. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, carpenters used it as their workshop while building the main house and other buildings and for later repairs.

The name is read daikuba, meaning the carpenters' place, not a large factory as the characters might suggest.

One of Few Surviving Construction Buildings

The Northern Culture Museum Carpenters' Workshop was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. It is a plain single-storey building with a gabled (Kirizuma-zukuri) pantile roof (Sangawara-buki), entered from the long side (Hirairi), and walled in Shitami-itabari weatherboard.

The agency notes that its tall posts express its use as a workshop and that it is one of the few surviving buildings connected with the construction of a large estate.

The former workshop of the same year was used for sawing timber, and the Shop Storehouse of 1885 held the carpenters' tools. Sawing, joinery and tool storage all survive together on the north side of the estate.

Room Under Tall Posts

The thing to notice on the Northern Culture Museum Carpenters' Workshop is the height of its posts. The agency reads these tall posts in a single-storey building as an expression of its use as a workshop.

Its weatherboard walls and lack of ornament are the opposite of the formal main house and great hall. That plainness is itself the record of a building made for the people who made the estate.

Visiting the Carpenters' Workshop

The Northern Culture Museum Carpenters' Workshop is at the far north of the museum grounds. Nothing is published about interior access, so expect to see its exterior.

The Shop Storehouse lies just to the south, with the former workshop, now the shop, beyond it. Keep photos and posts to personal use.