The Last Storehouse Built on the Shiotani Plot
The New Storehouse of the Shiotani Teikō Photography Memorial Museum (塩谷定好写真記念館新蔵, Shiotani Teikō Shashin Kinenkan Shingura) stands at Akasaki in Kotoura Town, Tottori Prefecture, was built in 1902 (Meiji 35), and was entered on the national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure) on 17 November 2015. The name 新蔵 means simply the new storehouse, and it was earned: of the four kura surviving on this plot, it is the youngest.
It occupies the southern edge of the site and looks north across the garden at the main house. Two storeys, built in dozō technique with thick earthen walls, roofed in pantiles over an east-west ridge, and small. The registered floor area is 23 square metres, which works out to a footprint of roughly five metres on a side. Beside the 192 square metres of the main house it is a modest thing, and that contrast is part of what makes the group legible.
The building rewards a slow look at its surfaces. The upper wall is finished in white shikkui plaster; the lower portion is namako-kabe, square tiles laid flat with the joints between them raised into rounded ridges of plaster, a grid of white lines over dark tile that reads as ornament and works as weatherproofing on the face most exposed to driven rain off the Sea of Japan. On the north side a pent roof shelters the entrance, closed by a pair of heavy kannon-biraki doors that swing apart like the leaves of a shrine cabinet. Inside, the walls are lined with vertical boarding, which kept goods clear of the damp earthen core.
Why a Small Storehouse Was Registered
Registration number 31-0209 came in the eighty-second round, under the criterion that the building contributes to the historical landscape of the country. The Agency for Cultural Affairs appraisal is blunt about the reasoning: this is the newest of the storehouses standing on the site, and it shows the process by which the estate was built up.
That process is readable because all five buildings went onto the register on the same day, and their dates spread across thirty-four years.
- Rice Storehouse (米蔵), 1872, with a partial upper floor and sheet-iron lining inside
- Gallery Wing (ギャラリー棟), 1874, a storehouse converted after the war into a shop and photographic studio
- Pawn Storehouse (質蔵), 1879, the largest on the plot, its foundation four courses of cut Kimachi stone
- New Storehouse (新蔵), 1902
- Main House (主屋), 1906
The Shiotani were shipping agents, trading rice and marine produce on the kitamaebune routes out of nearby Kiku Port. A merchant family in that business built storage before it built display. The rice storehouse and the pawn storehouse came first, in the 1870s, when the money was being made. The new storehouse arrived in 1902, and the street-facing main house four years after that. Read in sequence, the plot records a household filling out its holdings over three decades and only then turning to face the road.
One structural detail sets this storehouse apart from an ordinary kura. Its roof frame uses noboribari, beams raked up along the slope of the roof rather than laid horizontally with posts standing on them. The same system appears in the Gallery Wing next door. It is the sort of thing a visitor can see by looking up inside, and the sort of thing that carries weight in a registration appraisal.
Registration is worth understanding on its own terms. It is not designation as an Important Cultural Property or a National Treasure, which are stricter categories reserved for works of the highest value. Registration was created in 1996 for buildings generally over fifty years old, and it is built around keeping them in use. Without it, a five-metre-square storehouse would have almost no route into protection at all.
Seeing It on a Visit
The museum opened in the Shiotani birthplace on 26 April 2014, run by an NPO formed the previous year, and the New Storehouse is part of the ground a visitor walks. The rewarding approach is to treat the garden as a viewing position: stand between the main house and the storehouse and the two face each other across it, one broad and latticed, the other compact and plastered, built four years apart by the same family for entirely different purposes.
Then walk the storehouses in date order. The differences are easy to read once you know what to look for. The rice storehouse keeps its sheet-iron interior walls and a floor built into only part of the upper level. The pawn storehouse carries a wave-pattern plaster relief above its door. The New Storehouse is the tidiest and the smallest, its namako tiling and plaster still doing the job they were set to do in 1902.
Practical notes. Opening hours are published as 9:00 to 16:00, with a reduced 9:00 to 14:00 in effect for some time, so check before making the trip. Tuesday is the closing day. Admission is 300 yen for adults, free for junior high school students and younger, 200 yen each for groups of fifteen or more, and free for members, with an annual pass available. No photography policy is published for the interiors, so ask at reception. A cafe runs inside the Rice Storehouse during opening hours.
JR Akasaki Station on the San'in Main Line is about twenty minutes on foot. Drivers use the Kotoura town car park at Kiku Port beside the Namishigure Sandogasa sculpture, about thirty seconds away; large coaches cannot enter without prior arrangement, and the nearest bus stop is Kōjinmachi. The national register gives the address as Ōaza Akasaki 1561 while the museum publishes Akasaki 1568, both within the same block of the shopping street.
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Q&A
- What is the New Storehouse of the Shiotani Teikō Photography Memorial Museum?
- It is a two-storey earthen-walled storehouse built in 1902 (Meiji 35) on the southern edge of the Shiotani family plot at Akasaki in Kotoura Town, Tottori Prefecture. Its floor area is 23 square metres, and it is the newest of the four storehouses surviving on the site.
- When was the New Storehouse of the Shiotani Teikō Photography Memorial Museum registered, and under what category?
- It was registered on 17 November 2015 as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure), registration number 31-0209, on the ground that it contributes to the historical landscape of the country.
- What does namako-kabe on the New Storehouse of the Shiotani Teikō Photography Memorial Museum mean?
- It is a wall finish in which square tiles are laid flat and the joints between them are built up into rounded ridges of white plaster. Here it covers the lower part of the exterior walls, protecting the earthen core from rain while forming a grid pattern; the upper walls are plain white plaster.
- Can visitors see the New Storehouse of the Shiotani Teikō Photography Memorial Museum?
- Yes. The site is open to the public as the Shiotani Teikō Photography Memorial Museum, closed on Tuesdays, with adult admission of 300 yen. The storehouse faces the main house across the garden, and the garden makes the best viewing position.
- How do I get to the Shiotani Teikō Photography Memorial Museum and where can I park?
- JR Akasaki Station is about a twenty-minute walk. The Kotoura town car park at Kiku Port, next to the Namishigure Sandogasa sculpture, is around thirty seconds from the entrance. Large coaches need to contact the museum in advance.
Basic Information
| Name | Shiotani Teikō Photography Memorial Museum New Storehouse (塩谷定好写真記念館新蔵) |
|---|---|
| Location | 1561 Ōaza Akasaki, Kotoura Town, Tōhaku District, Tottori Prefecture (the museum publishes its address as Akasaki 1568) |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure), registration number 31-0209 |
| Year Designated | Registered 17 November 2015 (Heisei 27) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Earthen-walled storehouse construction, two storeys, tiled roof; floor area 23 square metres. Built 1902 (Meiji 35) |
| Owner | NPO Shiotani Teikō Photo Project |
| Public Access | Open as part of the museum. 9:00 to 16:00 as published, currently reduced to 9:00 to 14:00; closed Tuesdays; adults 300 yen |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs — National Cultural Properties Database: Shiotani Teikō Photography Memorial Museum New Storehouse
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00010886
- Agency for Cultural Affairs — National Cultural Properties Database: Pawn Storehouse
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00010885
- Shiotani Teikō Photo Project — Museum information and registered buildings
- https://teiko.jp/museum.php
- Tottori Prefecture — Tottori Cultural Properties Navi
- https://db.pref.tottori.jp/bunkazainavi.nsf/bunkazai_web_view/FF1DA5EDF799B4BE49257F6C001B6120
- Kotoura Town Tourism Association
- https://www.kotoura-kankou.com/art/shiotani_teiko/
Last verified: 2026.08.21