Okuno Family Residence Rice Storehouse

A rice store in the northwest corner

Okuno Family Residence Rice Storehouse (奥野家住宅米蔵, Okuno-ke Jūtaku Komegura) is a late-Edo storehouse of about 1830 to 1868 in Kasugamotomachi, Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on May 2, 2017, under number 27-0671.

It occupies the northwest corner of the plot and faces east: a single-storey Dozo-zukuri building 3 by 2 bays in plan, with a building area of 23 square meters, under a gabled Kirizuma-zukuri roof of pantiles, Sangawara-buki style.

As the name says, it was built to hold the harvest. For a farming household, rice was food, tax payment and trading capital all at once, and keeping it safe from damp and fire mattered above almost everything else.

A sealed canopy and two rooms

The entrance to the Okuno Family Residence Rice Storehouse is sheltered by a small canopy plastered right up into its soffit. Leaving no timber exposed stops the canopy from becoming a path for flames into the building.

Inside, the store is split into two rooms finished in Shinkabe style, with the posts left visible in the walls. Outside, Shikkui plaster rises above a skirt of boards, and each gable wall carries a small drip hood that throws rainwater clear of the surface below.

Where the clothing and tool storehouses on the same property dress their gables with bands of thick plaster, the rice storehouse uses these drip hoods instead. Fire and water protection become part of its visual character.

Why it was registered

The Okuno Family Residence Rice Storehouse was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape of the country; the agency credits it with creating an attractive streetscape.

Its corner position explains much of that. The door faces east into the yard, so the street sees the back and the gable end: blank white walls crossed by drip hoods, which together define the outer edge of the homestead.

What to look for

Watch for the drip hoods on the gable wall of the Okuno Family Residence Rice Storehouse. A thin line of roof runs across the white plaster and divides it in two. After rain, the band of wall just below the hood sometimes dries first and shows a different tone.

The fully plastered entrance canopy is hard to make out from outside the grounds. It is still worth knowing about, as a benchmark when you look at storehouses elsewhere.

Visiting

The Okuno Family Residence Rice Storehouse stands within a private residence and is not open inside. The exterior can be seen from the public road near the northwest corner of the plot. Please stay off the property and keep your visit short. Directions are on the Okuno Family Residence (Hirakata) page.