Hirano Family Residence Storehouse

A Brick Store at the Back of the Plot

The Hirano Family Residence Storehouse (平野家住宅蔵, Hirano-ke Jūtaku Kura) is a brick storehouse built around 1922 in Nishikata, Bunkyo City, Tokyo, and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 2 September 1998. It rises 2 storeys above a basement under a tiled roof, on a footprint of 21 square metres.

It stands at the western edge of the Hirano Family Residence designed by Yasuoka Katsuya, as far from the gate as the plot allows. Brick construction alone sets it apart from the timber buildings around it; the basement is the other feature that makes the Hirano Family Residence Storehouse distinctive.

Why It Was Listed: Overfired Brick and Rounded Joints

The Agency for Cultural Affairs begins with the brickwork. The Hirano Family Residence Storehouse uses yakisugi renga, bricks fired hard enough to darken, and the ones chosen here have a pleasantly even tone. The mortar joints are finished as fukurin meji, shaped into a rounded profile between the bricks.

The Agency also notes that the hoods over the windows are roofed with glass, a technique it credits to an architect's thinking.

The date is the other reason. As a storehouse attached to a house built before the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, it is considered a rare survivor. It was registered under the criterion for buildings that set a standard of design.

What to Look For: Colour and Shadow

The walls of the Hirano Family Residence Storehouse should reward a close look. Each overfired brick differs slightly in depth of colour, and the rounded joints cast thin lines of shadow between them. Compared with a wall of flush joints, the surface takes on a fine net of light and shade.

The glass-roofed window hoods can be read as a way of keeping rain off without darkening the windows. They show Yasuoka thinking through how light would reach a two-storey store with a basement.

Visiting

The Hirano Family Residence Storehouse lies deep inside a private property and is not open. Set at the western edge of the plot, it is unlikely to be visible from the lane.

Photographs of the exterior appear on the Agency's database page for the building. Directions to the property are on the Hirano Family Residence page.