Wada Family Residence Inner Storehouse

The Small Storehouse Behind the Main House

The Wada Family Residence Inner Storehouse (和田家住宅内蔵, Wada-ke Jūtaku Uchigura) is a two-storey Dozo-zukuri storehouse built in 1930 on the Wada family estate in Miyamotocho, Kishiwada City, Osaka Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 21 August 2002. It stands parallel to the back of the main house, deep inside the compound.

The entrance is on the long side (Hirairi), under a Kirizuma-zukuri gabled roof of Hongawarabuki tiles. The walls are finished in white Shikkui lime plaster, with vertical boards over the lower part of the back and sides. A door opens on the ground floor facing the main house, and small windows sit high in both gable ends. Its building area is 22 square metres, the smaller of the two storehouses on the estate.

Why It Was Registered

The Wada Family Residence Inner Storehouse was registered as a model of its type. The Agency for Cultural Affairs points to the shaped profiles of the brackets under the window hoods and to the plaster cornice carried all the way round onto the gable ends, and describes it as a carefully made storehouse.

The outer storehouse at the north corner of the estate is a large building for furniture and fittings. The inner storehouse is small and sits right behind the house with its door turned toward it, which suggests a store meant for things the household needed close at hand.

What to Look For

The pleasure here is in the details. Each upper-floor window has a little hood, and the Mochiokuri brackets that hold it are not plain boards but cut to a wavy profile.

The Nokijabara is a moulded band built up from many coats of plaster beneath the eaves. Usually it runs along the long sides and stops at the corners. Here it continues across the gable ends, so a single line wraps the whole building.

Vertical boards protect the base of the white walls from splashing rain, and the contrast of pale plaster above and dark boards below gives the building a firm footing.

Visiting the Inner Storehouse

The Wada Family Residence Inner Storehouse stands behind the main house, inside the walls, and is not open to the public. It is almost impossible to see from the street.

Since the brackets and the cornice cannot be seen on site, the photographs in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database are the best way to see them. Directions and visiting etiquette for the estate are on the Wada Family Residence page.