Kobatake Family Residence East Storehouse No. 2

One of two Edo-period storehouses on the road

The Kobatake Family Residence East Storehouse No. 2 (古畑家住宅東二の蔵, Kobatake-ke Jūtaku Higashi Ni-no-kura) is a two-storey Dozo-zukuri storehouse on a farmstead in Nakahata, Takatsuki, Osaka Prefecture, built in the late Edo period (1830-1867) and entered on the national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 8 July 2008. It measures 5.8 metres by 4.2 metres, with a building area of 25 square metres.

It stands on the eastern edge of the property, between the Nagayamon Gate and East Storehouse No. 1. Only these two storehouses on the road survive from the Edo period; everything else on the site belongs to the Taisho and early Showa years. When the main house and the detached wing went up in the Taisho era, this pair was left where it was.

Dozo-zukuri is the Japanese fireproof storehouse method: a timber frame packed and coated with clay until the walls are thick, then finished in white Shikkui lime plaster. Here the plaster is carried down to a skirt of vertical boarding at the base. The roof is a Kirizuma-zukuri gable in Sangawara-buki pantiles. On the south side, the north end of the Nagayamon Gate is built against the storehouse, so gate and store read as one building.

Why it was registered

The Kobatake Family Residence East Storehouse No. 2 was registered, as number 27-0488, for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs points to the way it meets the gatehouse to form a dignified front for the property.

Seen from the lane, the Kobatake compound presents gate, East Storehouse No. 2 and East Storehouse No. 1 in a single line. This storehouse is the middle link, bridging the timber gatehouse to the south and the white walls of the older storehouse to the north. It was registered less as a building to be judged on its own than as part of the face the household shows the road.

What to look for

The roof of East Storehouse No. 2 is an okiyane, a placed roof. Rather than framing the rafters into the clay walls, the builder sets a separately framed roof on top of the finished box, leaving a gap between the two. The usual explanation is fire: if the roof burns, the clay store beneath it has a better chance of surviving.

On this storehouse, though, the plaster does not stop at the top of the wall. It continues up and wraps the eaves of the placed roof, so wall and roof eaves read as a single white surface. From outside, the joint that normally betrays an okiyane is hidden, and the wall seems to rise straight to the tiles.

The boarded skirt protects the base of the plaster from rain splash and knocks. It also gives the white wall a darker footing, which is part of what makes the row of storehouses along the road look so orderly.

Visiting

East Storehouse No. 2 faces the road along the east side of the property and can be seen from public ground. With the Nagayamon Gate to the south and East Storehouse No. 1 to the north, the best view is from a spot where all three can be taken in at once; that is where its role in the frontage makes sense.

The interior is not open and the grounds are private. The lane is an everyday village road, so step aside for traffic and limit photographs to the exterior.