A 1935 Western-style building on the Koga highway
Kameya Shoji (Former Iijima Family Residence) Main Building is a timber Western-style building of 1935 at 1-78 Raidencho in Koga City, Ibaraki Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2004. It stands directly on the prefectural Higashi-Noda Koga road, and the feature that identifies it from a distance is the watchtower raised over its southwest corner.
The plan runs 6 and a half ken along the street front by 5 and a half ken deep, giving a building area of 200 square meters. The Agency for Cultural Affairs records the structure as timber, 2 storeys, roofed in copper sheet with zinc in places, and notes the tower as an added rooftop element. Koga City puts the same building slightly differently, as 2 storeys with a partial 3rd, counting the tower as a floor of its own.
The client was Iijima Raisuke, second-generation head of the Iijima silk-reeling business and later mayor of the town of Koga. The Ibaraki Prefectural Board of Education names him as the man who had the building put up. The Agency for Cultural Affairs record names the master carpenter, Yabe Sadao, rather than an architect.
Silk paid for it. Koga sat on the Nikko highway and prospered on reeling in the Meiji and Taisho periods, and the Iijima family was one of the houses that grew with that trade. By the mid-1930s the money had moved from the mill to the street front, and it took the form of tile, marble and a tower.
Why it is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property
The building entered the national register on 9 June 2004, with the public notice following on 24 June, under registration number 08-0124. The criterion applied was the one for buildings that contribute to the historic character of the national landscape, which is the criterion used when a structure has become part of how a place looks and is read. In the case of Kameya Shoji (Former Iijima Family Residence) Main Building, the tower does most of that work: it is the tallest thing on this stretch of road and has been since before the war.
Three more buildings on and beside the same site joined the register on that same day. Behind the main building stand a small storehouse and a low wing that held the former dining room and bathroom; across the prefectural road stands the brick warehouse of the former Iijima silk mill, which is older than all of them. Registered as a group of four, they preserve the layout of a provincial merchant family that ran a factory on one side of the road and lived on the other.
The system used here is registration, not designation. It was created in 1996 for buildings roughly 50 years old or more, and it asks owners to notify the state before major alterations rather than to seek permission for every repair. That is what allows a working company office to carry the status at all.
What to look for from the street
Start with the corner. The tower at the southwest angle is what the Agency for Cultural Affairs describes as recalling the National Diet Building, and the resemblance is in the stepped, squared-off mass rather than in any single detail. Stand back at the road junction rather than close to the fence, or the tower disappears behind the eaves.
Then read the wall. The pillars are expressed as flat strips faced in tile, so the elevation is divided into bays before the windows are even counted. Between them the openings are tall and narrow, a proportion that belongs to the 1920s and 1930s rather than to earlier Western-style work in Japan, where windows tend to be squarer. The top of the wall is finished with a cornice run like a parapet, which hides the roof and makes the whole thing read as a box.
The entrance is worth a pause. Marble columns, round in section, frame the doorway, and they are the one piece of genuinely expensive material on an elevation that otherwise achieves its effect with tile and paint.
Look up last. Copper sheet covers most of the roof, zinc the rest, and the two metals weather differently, so on a bright day the planes above the cornice do not match in colour.
Visiting Kameya Shoji (Former Iijima Family Residence) Main Building
Kameya Shoji Co., Ltd. owns the building and works in it. There is no interior visit, no opening time and no admission fee, and the grounds are private. What you can do is look at the exterior from the public road, which is how the building was meant to be seen in the first place.
Photography from the road is not restricted. Common courtesy applies rather than a rule: keep off the driveway, keep out of the way of vehicles, and avoid photographing staff. Neither Koga City nor the prefecture lists the property as an open facility, and no interior opening is announced for it.
Getting there is easy. From the east exit of Koga Station on the JR Utsunomiya Line it is about 600 meters north, roughly 8 minutes on foot, and the tower is visible for most of that walk. Koga Station is served by through trains from Ueno and Shinjuku, so the building can be reached from central Tokyo without changing.
For questions about the property itself, the Cultural Promotion Division of Koga City is the right contact, on 0280-22-5111. Information here was checked in September 2026.
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Q&A
- Can you go inside Kameya Shoji (Former Iijima Family Residence) Main Building?
- No. The building is the working office of Kameya Shoji Co., Ltd., the interior is not open, and the grounds are private property. Viewing is from the public road only.
- How do I get to Kameya Shoji (Former Iijima Family Residence) Main Building from Koga Station?
- Leave by the east exit and walk north for about 600 meters, about 8 minutes. The building sits on the prefectural Higashi-Noda Koga road and the corner tower is the landmark.
- When was Kameya Shoji Main Building built, and who built it?
- It was completed in 1935 for Iijima Raisuke, head of the Iijima silk-reeling business and later mayor of Koga town. The master carpenter recorded for the work is Yabe Sadao.
- Why does the tower on Kameya Shoji Main Building look like a parliament building?
- The Agency for Cultural Affairs description compares it to the National Diet Building. The likeness lies in the stepped, squared silhouette rather than in copied detail, and the tower has long served as a marker for this part of Koga.
- Are there other registered buildings near Kameya Shoji Main Building?
- Yes. A storehouse and a former dining room and bathroom wing stand behind it, and a brick warehouse from the former Iijima silk mill faces it across the prefectural road. All four were registered on the same day in 2004.
Basic Information
| Name | Kameya Shoji (Former Iijima Family Residence) Main Building |
|---|---|
| Location | 1-78 Raidencho, Koga City, Ibaraki Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) |
| Year Designated | Registered in 2004 (Heisei 16) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Building area 200 square meters; 6 and a half ken by 5 and a half ken |
| Owner | Kameya Shoji Co., Ltd. |
| Public Access | Interior not open; exterior may be viewed from the public road |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Kameya Shoji (Former Iijima Family Residence) Main Building
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00004110
- Cultural Heritage Online: Kameya Shoji (Former Iijima Family Residence) Main Building
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/188840
- Ibaraki Prefectural Board of Education, Cultural Properties of Ibaraki
- https://kyoiku.pref.ibaraki.jp/bunkazai/bunkazai-registered-6280/
- Koga City: Registered Cultural Property, Kameya Shoji Main Building
- https://www.city.ibaraki-koga.lg.jp/soshiki/bunka/15/siteitourokubunnkazai/kogabunkazaikennzoubutu/2418.html
Last verified: 2026.09.05