Shotokukan Storehouse

About the Shotokukan Storehouse

The Shotokukan Storehouse (樟徳館土蔵, Shōtokukan Dozō) is a storehouse of 1939 in Hishiyanishi 2-chome, Higashiosaka City, Osaka Prefecture, and it became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on October 18, 2000. It stands in the northwest corner of Shotokukan, the former private home of Mori Heizo, founder of the Shoin Gakuen schools, and consists of two two-story storehouses set side by side from east to west and joined into one.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs database records the Shotokukan Storehouse as a two-story building of Dozo-zukuri construction with a tiled roof and a floor area of 133 square meters. Among the six registered Shotokukan structures, only the main house (1,169 square meters) is a larger building. The guardian shrine for the household god stands immediately to its south.

Why It Was Registered

The Shotokukan Storehouse was registered as a model of form. The Agency's commentary notes that, counting the link between the two blocks, it runs 13 ken along its length, a scale it calls fitting for an estate of this standing.

Taking one ken as about 1.8 meters, 13 ken comes to roughly 24 meters. Each of the two storehouses is 5 ken long, which leaves about 3 ken for the connecting section. That is long for the storehouse of a private residence.

Two Storehouses and a Lower Linking Roof

Each block of the Shotokukan Storehouse measures 5 ken by 2.5 ken, with its ridge running east to west. The roofs are gabled, Kirizuma-zukuri, and laid in Hongawarabuki, the heavy style that alternates round and flat tiles. With two blocks of equal size side by side, the whole reads as nearly symmetrical from a distance.

Between them, a roof with its ridge set one step lower joins the two, and it is laid with Sangawara-buki tiles instead. Formal tiling on the storehouses and lighter tiling on the link is the detail to look for. Follow the point where the ridge drops and the tiles change, and you can tell from outside where each storehouse ends and the connection begins.

On the south side a lean-to roof, a Geya, forms a Kuramae, the covered working area in front of a storehouse door where goods could be moved in and out even in the rain. Because the kuramae is on the south face, the storehouse was evidently entered from that side.

Seeing the Shotokukan Storehouse

The Shotokukan Storehouse sits in the northwest corner of the grounds, on the opposite side of the grounds from the gate and the road along the Nagase River. We have not confirmed how much of it can be seen from outside the walls.

A close view of the Shotokukan Storehouse is only possible on the public opening days held once every four years. We found no statement on whether its interior is shown on those days. If you do visit, step back a little to compare the formal tiles of the two storehouses with the lighter tiles of the link.