Harinakano Nakano Acupuncture Document Storehouse

The storehouse beside the gate

Harinakano Nakano Acupuncture Document Storehouse is a plastered storehouse in the Nakano family's acupuncture compound in Higashisumiyoshi Ward, Osaka, built in 1902 and entered on the national register as Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 5 December 2019.

It stands at the centre of the compound's southern edge and faces north. Two storeys of dozo-zukuri construction under a pantile roof, covering 27 square metres. Because the front faces north, what the southern street sees is the back and the gable end.

Shikkui plaster is carried up over the eaves soffit and a single moulded band runs round the upper wall. Vertical boards protect the base. The ground floor is divided into front and rear rooms, the upper floor left as one. The roof frame is wagoya, and the boarding above it is laid following the slope from ridge to purlin.

The name records the contents. Documents were kept here, and the Nakano house is said to hold transmitted texts on acupuncture and works on herbal medicine. Harinakano Nakano Acupuncture Document Storehouse was built to protect them.

Why it was registered

The listing criterion is contribution to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs credits this storehouse with giving weight and depth to the setting around the front gate.

The southern street carries, from west to east, the former reception hall, the front gate, the document storehouse and the general storehouse. Harinakano Nakano Acupuncture Document Storehouse sits immediately east of the gate. The gate does not read as an isolated incident because plastered walls of the same height flank it on both sides.

Like the gate and the former reception hall, it is attributed to Kongo Gumi. All three date from 1902, the year the street frontage took its present shape.

What to look for

From the southern street the gable end faces you. The roof cuts a triangle out of the sky and a broad plane of white plaster fills the space below it. The moulded band running horizontally across the upper wall divides that plane in two and keeps it from feeling blank.

The lower half of the wall is black boarding. Under the 2017 restoration work, corrugated iron that had been fixed over it came away, charred cedar boards went back on and damaged boards were renewed. The clean line where white meets black is the result of that work.

Compare it with the storehouse next door. This one has a pantile roof; the general storehouse has sheet metal, and its ridge runs at ninety degrees to this one. Two storehouses side by side avoid monotony for exactly that reason.

Seeing it

Harinakano Nakano Acupuncture Document Storehouse is not open to visitors. The compound cannot be entered and the interior is closed.

Viewing is from the southern street. The entrance side faces into the compound, so what you see from the road is the rear wall and the gable. Use the front gate as a marker: the storehouse is immediately to its east. There is no admission charge and no opening hours.

Keep photography to the exterior from the road. Directions from the station and the viewing conditions for the compound as a whole are set out on the Harinakano Nakano Acupuncture page.