A stone tower on Ishimachi Street
Tenkoku Art Museum Front Storehouse (Former Hirano Family Front Storehouse, 篆刻美術館表蔵棟) is a stone warehouse of 3 storeys in Chuocho, Koga City, Ibaraki Prefecture, built in 1920 (Taisho 9) and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 1998 (Heisei 10).
The plan is small. Koga City records the frontage at 4.545 meters and the depth at 6.363 meters, for a building area of 28.92 square meters. Three floors sit on that footprint, which is why the building reads as vertical from the pavement. The tiled roof sits a long way up for a structure of this width.
The walls are Oya stone, a volcanic tuff quarried south of Utsunomiya. A saw goes through it; fire does not. Masons in the northern Kanto plain worked it in blocks and left the joints visible, and those horizontal lines are the first thing that registers when you stand in front of Tenkoku Art Museum Front Storehouse.
The city's cultural affairs division records how the rooms were used before the conversion. The ground floor was finished as a full Western-style room. The 2nd and 3rd floors above were storage. A storehouse carrying a reception room at street level is a hybrid, and it accounts for the trouble taken over the openings on the gable end.
Then the road in front was widened. The building was not pulled down. It was raised on rollers and shifted bodily by the technique called hikiya, and afterwards refitted for display. The Tenkoku Art Museum opened in the spring of 1991 (Heisei 3), the first museum in Japan devoted to tenkoku, the art of seal engraving, and Tenkoku Art Museum Front Storehouse holds its Exhibition Rooms 1 and 2.
What the registration protects
Registration and designation are separate systems in Japan. Tenkoku Art Museum Front Storehouse belongs to the first of them: it is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, entered on the national register on 9 October 1998 under registration number 08-0004, with the notification published later the same month.
The criterion applied was the one for buildings that contribute to the historic landscape of the country. In the Agency for Cultural Affairs record, the building is described as long known as a landmark of the shopping street, and that is the part of its value the register is protecting. It is not a rare structural type held up as a specimen. It is a piece of Koga's street that people recognise.
Registration, unlike designation, does not freeze a building. Owners may alter and use it, with notification required for major changes to the exterior. That flexibility is what allowed the third floor of Tenkoku Art Museum Front Storehouse to be opened up into a void during the conversion, so that the roof frame is now visible from below, and it is why the building is a working gallery rather than a preserved shell.
From the gable openings to the open third floor
Start outside, on the gable end. Both the Agency for Cultural Affairs and Koga City single out the openings there as unusual in design, and they repay a slow look: the way the stone is cut around them differs from the plain rectangular slots you find on most warehouse walls of the period.
Inside, the sequence is vertical. Exhibition Room 1, on the ground floor, is the space that was once the Western room, and it now shows work by Ikui Shika (1904-1989), the seal engraver from Koga around whom the collection was built. Exhibition Room 2 above it holds the material side of the art: fudei, the clay used for sealing documents, blocks of seal stone, ceramic fragments, and wooden seals by Nakamura Rantai II. Contents change when a special exhibition is running.
Look up at the top. Where two storage floors once stacked, the third level of Tenkoku Art Museum Front Storehouse is now open to the roof, and the timbers that carry the tiles are in plain sight. Stone below, wood above, with the join between them at eye level on the stair.
Step back out and cross the courtyard to the south. The long, low building on the far side is the Rear Storehouse, registered on the same day as its counterpart. The pair, set at right angles across an open yard, is the plan the Hirano house was built on, and the courtyard is the only place from which both can be seen at once.
Visiting Tenkoku Art Museum Front Storehouse
The museum opens from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with last admission at 4:30 p.m. Admission is 200 yen for adults and 50 yen for elementary, junior high and high school students; groups of 20 or more pay 150 yen a head. A 600 yen combination ticket covers this museum, the Koga Historical Museum and the Koga Museum of Literature. Special exhibitions occasionally carry a different rate.
Closing days are Mondays, with the museum open when a national holiday falls on a Monday and shut on the following weekday instead, plus the 4th Friday of each month for collection maintenance, and the New Year period. Koga City publishes a year calendar of opening days, which is the thing to check before travelling.
On photography, the city's pages set out no rule either way, so ask at the desk before pointing a camera at anything indoors. The exterior of Tenkoku Art Museum Front Storehouse stands directly on a public street and can be photographed freely from there.
Getting there takes about 8 minutes on foot from the west exit of Koga Station on the JR Utsunomiya Line, which is roughly 60 minutes from Ueno or Shinjuku on the Ueno-Tokyo Line and Shonan-Shinjuku Line. Walk straight out of the west exit, turn left at the crossing past the florist, keep going through the Hon-cho 2-chome intersection, and the building is on your left at the signal named after the museum. From Shin-Koga Station on the Tobu Nikko Line it is about 25 minutes on foot. The Gururin-go community bus runs from Koga Station west exit on its western route to the stop at the museums. Drivers can use the gravel lot across the road from the entrance.
Seal engraving workshops are held in a separate study room a minute or 2 towards the station, by advance booking only. Allow about 40 minutes for the galleries themselves if you are only looking.
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Q&A
- Can you go inside Tenkoku Art Museum Front Storehouse, and what does it cost?
- Yes. The building is in daily use as Exhibition Rooms 1 and 2 of the Tenkoku Art Museum, so the interior is open whenever the museum is. Admission is 200 yen for adults, 50 yen for school students, and 600 yen for the combination ticket covering three Koga museums.
- How do you get to Tenkoku Art Museum Front Storehouse from Koga Station?
- Leave by the west exit of Koga Station on the JR Utsunomiya Line and walk about 8 minutes, turning left past the florist and continuing through the Hon-cho 2-chome intersection. Shin-Koga Station on the Tobu Nikko Line is about 25 minutes away on foot.
- When was Tenkoku Art Museum Front Storehouse built, and when was it registered?
- It was built in 1920 (Taisho 9) as a storehouse of the Hirano family, and entered the national register of tangible cultural properties on 9 October 1998 under number 08-0004.
- May I take photographs inside Tenkoku Art Museum Front Storehouse?
- Koga City publishes no photography rule for the museum, so check at the reception desk on arrival. Photographing the outside of the building from the street is unrestricted.
- What is the difference between Tenkoku Art Museum Front Storehouse and the Rear Storehouse?
- They are two separate registrations of the same date. The front building faces the street, has 3 storeys on a 28.92 square meter footprint, and is built of Oya stone. The rear building stands across the courtyard to the south, runs long and low on 2 floors over 66.10 square meters, and holds Exhibition Rooms 3, 4 and 5.
Basic Information
| Name | Tenkoku Art Museum Front Storehouse (Former Hirano Family Front Storehouse) |
|---|---|
| Location | 5655-1 Chuocho 2-chome, Koga City, Ibaraki Prefecture, and other locations |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) |
| Year Designated | Registered in 1998 (Heisei 10) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Frontage 4.545 meters, depth 6.363 meters, building area 28.92 square meters |
| Owner | Koga City |
| Public Access | Open as Exhibition Rooms 1 and 2 of the Tenkoku Art Museum, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., admission charged |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Database of Designated Cultural Properties: Tenkoku Art Museum Front Storehouse
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00000811
- Koga City, Registered Cultural Property: Tenkoku Art Museum Front Storehouse (Former Hirano Family Front Storehouse)
- https://www.city.ibaraki-koga.lg.jp/soshiki/bunka/15/siteitourokubunnkazai/kogabunkazaikennzoubutu/2419.html
- Koga City, Tenkoku Art Museum
- https://www.city.ibaraki-koga.lg.jp/soshiki/tenkoku/top.html
- Koga City, Tenkoku Art Museum: Visitor Information
- https://www.city.ibaraki-koga.lg.jp/soshiki/tenkoku/16188.html
- Koga City, Tenkoku Art Museum: Access
- https://www.city.ibaraki-koga.lg.jp/soshiki/tenkoku/16190.html
Last verified: 2026.09.07