What Is the Akaiwa City Yoshii Local History Museum?
The Akaiwa City Yoshii Local History Museum (Former Nihori Elementary and Higher Elementary School Main Building) is a two-storey timber school building in Susai, Akaiwa City, Okayama Prefecture, built in 1927, moved and reduced in size in 1984, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on May 15, 2007.
In Japanese it is 赤磐市吉井郷土資料館（旧仁堀尋常高等小学校本館） (Akaiwa-shi Yoshii Kyōdo Shiryōkan, Kyū Nihori Jinjō Kōtō Shōgakkō Honkan). The building first stood elsewhere in the city, in Nihori-naka as the main building of the Nihori Elementary and Higher Elementary School, a village school that taught both the compulsory primary grades and the higher course. According to Akaiwa City, it was designed by Ichikawa Masahiko, an engineer of the prefectural government, and built by Togawa Kumajirō on a contract of 16,500 yen.
The new school opened with a ceremony in 1927 and stayed in use through the wartime "national school" years and the postwar reforms. In 1949 a second-floor classroom in the south wing became an assembly hall, and the roof was renewed after Typhoon No. 15 in 1955 and again in 1970. In 1981 Nihori Elementary School merged with a neighboring school and closed.
Rather than lose the building, the town took it down in 1984 and rebuilt about half of it, chosen for its most characteristic parts, next to the old Yoshii town hall, now the Yoshii branch office of Akaiwa City. Paid for with a prefectural regional-development grant and a donation from local businessman Takahara Morio, it opened as the Yoshii Town Local History Museum on September 1, 1984, and took its present name in 2005 after the municipal merger.
Why the Yoshii Local History Museum Was Registered
The Akaiwa City Yoshii Local History Museum is entry 33-0153 in the national register, part of the 54th round of registrations in 2007, listed as a model of architectural form. The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes a two-storey timber building with a sheet-metal roof and a building area of 199 square meters. It measures 22 meters by 9.1 meters under a hipped roof (Yosemune-zukuri) and presents its long side to the street.
What the agency singles out is the exterior design. The walls combine clapboard (Shitami-itabari) with roughcast "German wall" plaster; the center of the front has a gambrel-style gable hung with a Gegyo ornament above a porch, and the ends have side doors in an Expressionist manner. The agency calls it a Stick Style school, a style in which exposed boards and trim divide the walls into panels. Akaiwa City describes it as a forerunner of the new primary school architecture of the early Showa period.
It helps to know how much smaller the building is now. The original school in Nihori was 45.5 meters long with 856 square meters of floor space and eight classrooms, and it was asymmetrical when seen from the front. Today's Yoshii Local History Museum is 22 meters long with about 424 square meters of floor space, roughly half, while its depth of 9.1 meters and height of 11.6 meters are unchanged.
What to Look For at the Akaiwa City Yoshii Local History Museum
The gambrel gable
At the center of the front, over the porch, rises a gable with a bent, two-pitch outline. Akaiwa City calls it a gambrel roof. A Western roof shape carrying a Japanese gegyo pendant is a telling mix, and there is an ornament on the ridge as well.
Roughcast and boards
Up close, the gritty, pebbly texture of the roughcast plaster sits against the clean lines of horizontal lapped boards and vertical board-and-batten panels. That contrast of rough surface and straight timber is what gives the facade its character.
The side doors
Walk to the ends of the building to find the side entrances: one with a small roof held up on bracketed posts (Mochiokuri), another with geometric ornament. These are the "Expressionist" details the agency mentions, finished right down to the cornice boards under the eaves and the decoration on the posts.
Traces of school life inside
Inside the Akaiwa City Yoshii Local History Museum you can see a tatami room with a tokonoma alcove once used for etiquette and sewing lessons, a classroom with its blackboard, and a decorative ceiling medallion. Part of the second-floor ceiling is glazed so you can look up into the roof framing. Because the shortened building also has a shortened corridor, a life-size photograph of the original corridor has been mounted on the wall to restore the sense of length. The stair treads are low for small children and still show the line once painted down the middle. Look too for the windowpanes on which teachers wrote the character 仁 (the "Ni" of Nihori), one by one, and for the compass markings on the ceiling.
Visiting the Akaiwa City Yoshii Local History Museum
The Akaiwa City Yoshii Local History Museum (Former Nihori Elementary and Higher Elementary School Main Building) is open as a museum and admission is free. It opens Monday to Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and closes on Saturdays, Sundays, national holidays (including substitute holidays) and over the New Year period. Opening days are posted on the calendar of the Akaiwa City museums website, and inquiries go to the Yoshii community center (+81-86-954-1379).
The displays cover farm and forestry tools, household goods used until the middle of the Showa period, and school items such as a hand bell, a pedal organ, slates, and a 35 mm projector from the local Susai cinema. The city gives no information on photography, so ask when you visit.
By car, take Prefectural Route 27 north from the San'yō interchange of the San'yō Expressway, about 35 minutes; the Akaiwa City Yoshii branch office intersection is the landmark. From the Mimasaka interchange on the Chūgoku Expressway, head south about 16 kilometers on National Route 374. By public transport, take the Uno Bus Mimasaka Line from JR Okayama Station toward Hayashino Station and get off at Yoshii Chūgakkō-mae. Buses are not frequent, so check Uno Bus's timetable first.
Q&A
- How old is the Akaiwa City Yoshii Local History Museum building?
- It was built in 1927 as the main building of the Nihori Elementary and Higher Elementary School. After the school closed, it was moved to its present site and reduced to about half its size in 1984, when it became a museum.
- When was the Akaiwa City Yoshii Local History Museum registered as a cultural property?
- On May 15, 2007, as Registered Tangible Cultural Property no. 33-0153, listed as a model of architectural form.
- When is the Akaiwa City Yoshii Local History Museum open, and is there a fee?
- Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. It is closed on weekends, national holidays and over the New Year. Admission is free.
- What is architecturally special about the Akaiwa City Yoshii Local History Museum?
- It is a two-storey Stick Style timber school with clapboard and roughcast walls, a gambrel-style gable with a gegyo pendant over the central porch, and Expressionist side doors at the ends.
- How do I get to the Akaiwa City Yoshii Local History Museum?
- By car, about 35 minutes north from the San'yō interchange on Prefectural Route 27. By bus, take the Uno Bus Mimasaka Line from JR Okayama Station to Yoshii Chūgakkō-mae.
Basic Information
| Name | Akaiwa City Yoshii Local History Museum (Former Nihori Elementary and Higher Elementary School Main Building) (赤磐市吉井郷土資料館（旧仁堀尋常高等小学校本館）) |
|---|---|
| Location | 136 Susai, Akaiwa City, Okayama Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Building) |
| Year Designated | Registered May 15, 2007 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Two-storey timber building, sheet-metal roof, building area 199 square meters (22 meters by 9.1 meters) |
| Owner | Akaiwa City |
| Public Access | Open as a museum (weekdays 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., free admission) |
References
- Database of National Cultural Properties (Agency for Cultural Affairs): Akaiwa City Yoshii Local History Museum (Former Nihori Elementary and Higher Elementary School Main Building)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00006010
- Cultural Heritage Online (Agency for Cultural Affairs): Akaiwa City Yoshii Local History Museum
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/152615
- Akaiwa City Museums: Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Japanese)
- https://www.city.akaiwa.lg.jp/akaiwa_rekishi/yoshii/5557.html
- Akaiwa City Museums: About the Yoshii Local History Museum (Japanese)
- https://www.city.akaiwa.lg.jp/akaiwa_rekishi/yoshii/1777.html
- Akaiwa City Museums: Access to the Yoshii Local History Museum (Japanese)
- https://www.city.akaiwa.lg.jp/akaiwa_rekishi/yoshii/3380.html
- Akaiwa City Museums: Exhibits (Japanese)
- https://www.city.akaiwa.lg.jp/akaiwa_rekishi/yoshii/1778.html
Last verified: 2026.10.02