The Annex an Inventor Built at Home
Gariban Denshōkan, the Western-style annex of the former Horii family residence at 663 Gamō Okamoto-chō in Higashiōmi City, Shiga Prefecture, was completed in 1909 and entered on the national Register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 11 December 1998. It is a two-storey timber building with a hipped tile roof, clapboard walls and a footprint of 49 square metres, and it was raised by a master carpenter from Osaka named Noguchi Seizō.
Inside, on both floors, there is one room. No corridor, no partition. That plan is unusual enough in a Meiji house to be the first thing worth noticing, and it fits the purpose: this was the display and reception wing of a merchant-inventor's country seat, not living space.
The family that built it had been in Ōmi for centuries. The Horii served the Sasaki clan in the medieval period and turned to farming and trade after the Sasaki fell, and by the late Edo period they were brewing sake and soy sauce in the Kantō region as Ōmi merchants. The thirty-eighth head of the house, Horii Shinjirō (1856 to 1932), and his son patented something else entirely. In 1894 they produced the tōshaban, the Japanese mimeograph, and opened the shop Tōshadō in Kanda, Tokyo, to make and sell the equipment.
The nickname came from the sound. Cutting a stencil meant dragging an iron stylus across a wax-coated sheet laid on a rasp plate, and the rasping noise gave the machine the name gariban. Ink pushed through the cut lines onto paper below. It cost almost nothing, needed no press and no electricity, and for the better part of eighty years it printed the school newsletters, union circulars, temple notices and neighbourhood bulletins of Japan.
Registration Rather Than Designation
This building is a registered property, not a designated one, and the difference shapes how it is treated. Japan created the registration system in 1996 for structures roughly fifty years old or more, mainly from the Meiji period onward, applying a lighter touch than designation: owners notify the authorities before altering a building rather than seeking permission, and the register is meant to keep working buildings working. Well over ten thousand structures now carry the status.
The annex was registered under the criterion of contributing to the historical landscape of the nation, with register number 25-0108, in the fifteenth round of registrations. The notice was published on 25 December 1998, two weeks after the registration date.
The choice of criterion is telling. What is protected here is not architectural refinement but the way the building sits in its surroundings. The Horii compound once held more than ten structures, an annex, a detached wing, storehouses, outbuildings and a stroll garden, ringed by stone walls and hedges, with branch-family houses along its south and east sides. In a purely agricultural village, the effect of all those tiled roofs together was closer to a merchant townscape. Storehouses still stand around the site, and that wider setting is what the register recognises.
The main house went up a year earlier, in 1908: a single-storey building with a partial upper floor, gabled and tiled, about 14.8 metres by 9.8 metres, with an irimoya entrance porch on the south front and ten-mat and eight-mat guest rooms fitted with alcoves and display shelves. Gas lamps were installed in every room, a rarity in a house of that date outside the cities.
The annex is the only part of the complex on the register. Restored first, it opened as the town museum of Gamō in April 1998; registration followed in December. The main house was repaired afterwards and is now also open. One point in the official record has been overtaken by events: the Agency for Cultural Affairs lists the owner as the town of Gamō, which was absorbed into Higashiōmi City in 2006. The city manages the site today.
Visiting
The annex is painted a pale blue that reads oddly and pleasantly against the tiled roofs of the village. Clapboard siding, sash windows, a small two-storey box: this is the vocabulary of Meiji Western-style building as it reached the countryside, filtered through a carpenter trained in Japanese methods. Noguchi Seizō came from Osaka to build it, which itself indicates what the commission was worth.
The entrance you use is not original. The annex stood east of the main house and originally connected to a detached guest wing; when the building was converted for museum use a new entrance section was added on the east side. Knowing that, the join is easy to spot.
What is on show inside is the machinery and its output: early mimeograph equipment, material relating to the Horii Tōshadō company, printed matter, and stencil prints by contemporary artists working in the medium. A chronology of Horii Shinjirō and the firm runs along one wall, and there is video.
The part people remember is doing it. The museum keeps a hands-on space where you can cut a stencil and pull prints, usually postcards. Booking is required, through the website of Shin Gariban Network, the citizens' group with its office in the building. The stylus catches and skips in a way no screen does, and the finished card carries the slight unevenness that made mimeograph printing feel handmade even when it was mass communication.
Opening is limited: Saturdays and Sundays only, 10:00 to 16:30, last admission 16:00, closed over the new year. Admission is free and there is parking for twenty cars. Weekday enquiries go to the city's museum division; the building has its own line at weekends. From Ōmi-Hachiman Station on the JR Biwako Line, take an Ōmi Railway bus on the Nichihachi route from the south exit and get off at the Gariban Denshōkan stop, one minute on foot. By car it is about twenty minutes from the Ryūō interchange on the Meishin Expressway. The Gariban Festival, run by Shin Gariban Network, is held every November, and the group also mounts occasional exhibitions.
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Q&A
- When is Gariban Denshōkan in Higashiōmi open, and how much does it cost?
- It opens on Saturdays and Sundays only, from 10:00 to 16:30, with last admission at 16:00, and closes over the new year period. Admission is free. There is parking for twenty vehicles.
- Can you try mimeograph printing at Gariban Denshōkan?
- Yes. The museum has a hands-on space where visitors cut a stencil with an iron stylus and print, typically making postcards. Reservations are required and are taken through the website of Shin Gariban Network, the citizens' group based at the museum.
- What exactly is registered as a cultural property at Gariban Denshōkan?
- Only the Western-style annex of the former Horii residence, built in 1909. It is a two-storey timber structure with a hipped tile roof and clapboard walls, 49 square metres in footprint, registered on 11 December 1998 with register number 25-0108 under the criterion of contributing to the historical landscape of the nation. The main house, built in 1908, is not itself registered.
- Who were the Horii family associated with Gariban Denshōkan?
- Horii Shinjirō (1856 to 1932), the thirty-eighth head of a merchant house from this village, and his son invented the tōshaban mimeograph in 1894 and founded Tōshadō in Kanda, Tokyo, to manufacture and sell it. The family had earlier been brewers of sake and soy sauce in the Kantō region, trading as Ōmi merchants.
- How do you get to Gariban Denshōkan by public transport?
- From Ōmi-Hachiman Station on the JR Biwako Line, take an Ōmi Railway bus on the Nichihachi route from the south exit and alight at the Gariban Denshōkan stop; the museum is one minute away on foot. Drivers reach it in about twenty minutes from the Ryūō interchange on the Meishin Expressway via Route 477.
Basic Information
| Name | Gariban Denshōkan, former Horii Residence Western-style Annex (ガリ版伝承館／旧堀井家住宅洋館) |
|---|---|
| Location | 663 Gamō Okamoto-chō, Higashiōmi City, Shiga Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (building); register number 25-0108, fifteenth registration round |
| Year Designated | Registered 11 December 1998; notice published 25 December 1998 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Two-storey timber structure, tile roof, footprint 49 square metres; hipped roof, clapboard walls, single-room plan |
| Owner | Recorded in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database as the town of Gamō; the town merged into Higashiōmi City in 2006 and the city manages the property |
| Public Access | Open Saturdays and Sundays 10:00 to 16:30 (last admission 16:00), closed over the new year. Admission free. Printing experience by reservation |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Gariban Denshōkan (former Horii Residence Western-style Annex)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00000985
- Higashiōmi City: Gariban Denshōkan
- https://www.city.higashiomi.shiga.jp/bunka_sports_shougaigakushu/rekishi_bunka/1003181/1003189.html
- Shin Gariban Network: Gariban Denshōkan
- https://gamo-gariban.com/
- Wikipedia (Japanese): Gariban Denshōkan
- https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AC%E3%83%AA%E7%89%88%E4%BC%9D%E6%89%BF%E9%A4%A8
Last verified: 2026.08.11