Kawasaki Mutsuo Family Residence East Storehouse

What Is the Kawasaki Mutsuo Family Residence East Storehouse?

The Kawasaki Mutsuo Family Residence East Storehouse (川崎睦男家住宅東蔵, Kawasaki Mutsuo-ke Jūtaku Higashigura) is a mid-Meiji, 2-storey earthen-walled Dozo-zukuri storehouse on the old Tokaido highway in Tehara, Ritto City, Shiga Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 21 April 1998. It has a tiled roof and a building area of 20 square meters.

It is probably the oldest of the four registered buildings on the estate. The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to the middle of the Meiji period, which may place it before the main house of 1903, although no exact year is given.

A Small Storehouse with Its Gable to the Road

Seen from the street, the Kawasaki Mutsuo Family Residence East Storehouse stands to the right of the main house, with its gable end turned toward the old Tokaido. The triangular gable wall meets the highway head-on.

At 20 square meters it is exactly half the size of the north storehouse at the back of the lot. Small as it is, the agency calls it an important part of the streetscape together with the main house, and an indispensable element of the estate's layout. It was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape, under number 25-0031.

With the lattice front of the main house alone, the street side would read as a single townhouse. The gable of the East Storehouse adds a second element, so that house and storehouse stand side by side facing the road and the frontage reads as a full estate.

Two Touches on a Standard Storehouse

The agency describes the Kawasaki Mutsuo Family Residence East Storehouse as a standard earthen storehouse with a Nokijabara, a stepped band of plaster moulding built out under the eaves, which also helps protect the eaves from fire.

Two features set it apart. The lower part of the wall is clad in vertical boards, a skirting that shields the earthen wall from rain splashing up from the ground. The roof is an Okiyane, a separately framed roof set on top of the plastered body of the storehouse, so that if the roof burned in a fire the storehouse itself could survive.

The north storehouse at the back uses the same okiyane method. A mid-Meiji storehouse and an early Showa one built the same way show how the family's way of building storehouses carried across generations.

Visiting the Kawasaki Mutsuo Family Residence East Storehouse

The Kawasaki Mutsuo Family Residence East Storehouse is privately owned, and its interior is closed.

Because its gable faces the old Tokaido, the exterior can be seen from the street. The board skirting and the eaves moulding are clearest on the gable end. To see how the separate roof sits on the body, look at the line where the top of the gable wall meets the roof. Please stay on the public road and do not enter the property.