Asano Family Residence Tatsumi Storehouse

What the Asano Family Residence Tatsumi Storehouse Is

The Asano Family Residence Tatsumi Storehouse (浅野家住宅巽蔵, Asano-ke Jūtaku Tatsumigura) is a two-storey earthen storehouse built in 1935 in Kyuhoji 5-chome, Yao City, Osaka Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 8 November 2004. It occupies the southeast corner of the Asano estate.

It is a Dozo-zukuri storehouse of 2 and a half by 2 bays, covering 26 square metres. The gabled roof, Kirizuma-zukuri, runs its ridge north to south and is laid in Sangawara-buki tile. The walls are white Shikkui plaster over a skirting of vertical boards, and the doorway is on the west face.

Tatsumi is an old name for the direction southeast, and the building sits where its name says. The opposite corner, to the northwest, belongs to the late Edo Inui Storehouse.

Why It Was Registered

It was registered, like the rest of the estate, as a building contributing to the historic landscape. The Asano Family Residence Tatsumi Storehouse is one of the three outbuildings put up around 1935 at the back of the plot, and it holds the corner where the eastern and southern ranges meet around the yard south of the main house.

Its link to the East Barn is the defining feature. The barn adjoins it on the north, and the tiled eave along the barn's west side continues without a break to the front of the storehouse door. One eave ties barn and storehouse into a sheltered working line, which reads as a way of moving goods in and out under cover. Two separate buildings read as one range along the east side of the estate.

Set beside the Inui Storehouse, it shows how the same building type shifted the better part of a century later. The Edo storehouse has heavy hongawara tiles; this one has sangawara, and it carries an ornamental window on its upper gable.

What to Look For

The feature to find is the round window in the upper gable. A small hood shaped like a karahafu, the undulating cusped gable of temple and castle gateways, is set over it. On a building type that is usually all function, this is the one place where decoration was allowed in. The Agency for Cultural Affairs places the window on the upper gable end without saying which of the two, north or south.

The pairing of white plaster and vertical-board skirting is the same as on the Inui Storehouse. The better part of a century apart, the two storehouses still share one wall finish across the estate.

The eave running in from the East Barn passes over the west face, where the door is. Follow that line and you can see where the storehouse was entered and from which direction goods came.

Visiting

The Asano Family Residence Tatsumi Storehouse is on private property and is not open (checked 27 September 2026). Tucked into the far corner of the plot, it is likely to show only part of its roof and walls to the public road.

Keep any photography to the street, and do not try to look into the grounds.