Fukuchiyo Sake Brewery Rice Mill

The Old Rice Mill

The Fukuchiyo Sake Brewery Rice Mill (富久千代酒造精米所) is a single-storey mill for polishing sake rice of about 1921 in Hamamachi, Kashima City, Saga Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on November 8, 2004 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Agency records a single-storey timber building with a tiled roof and a building area of 128 square meters; registration number 41-0046.

A Long Single-Storey Range

The Fukuchiyo Sake Brewery Rice Mill stands with its west gable against the north part of the east gable of the No. 1 Storehouse (Agency for Cultural Affairs). It is a single-storey Kirizuma-zukuri gabled building with a Sangawara-buki tile roof, long and narrow at 9.5 by 3 bays.

Its roof frame alternates Nobori-bari rising beams with double tie beams (Agency for Cultural Affairs), and the walls are clad in vertical Yakisugi boards like the storehouse beside it.

Why It Was Registered

The Agency describes the Fukuchiyo Sake Brewery Rice Mill as one of the facilities a sake brewery cannot do without, and registered it for its contribution to the historic landscape. Kashima City's historic character plan recalls that each brewery once had its own mill where its rice was polished.

What to Look For

In 2014 the rice mill was converted into a gallery by the architects Yujin and Yuko Hirase of yHa architects. They explain that the building, long used as a warehouse, had tilted until it leaned on the equipment building next door; the roof was lightened, the frame pulled upright and steel plates inserted under the beams.

Inside the Fukuchiyo Sake Brewery Rice Mill, the striking element is a wall of 12 mm mill-scale steel plate. Square openings framed with 4.5 mm ribs stiffen the plate and double as shelves for full-size and 720 ml sake bottles. Set slightly inward, the steel left the original earthen walls, 94 years old at the time, largely untouched, and the openings frame views of them (yHa architects).

The conversion won a Good Design Award in 2016 and the grand prize of the JID AWARD 2016 from the Japan Interior Designers' Association, among others (yHa architects). Because the building is registered, its outward form was kept, and the exterior was re-clad in charred cedar.

Visiting

The Kashima City Tourism Association notes that while Fukuchiyo Sake Brewery offers no tours or tastings, visitors can see the display of its main labels in the gallery in the former rice mill, open 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., closed on Saturdays, Sundays, public holidays and over the New Year. Whether a reservation is needed and whether photography is allowed could not be confirmed, so contact the company before visiting.