Shiotani Teiko Photography Memorial Museum

A Shipping Merchant's House and Its Storehouses

The Shiotani Teiko Photography Memorial Museum (塩谷定好写真記念館, Shiotani Teiko Shashin Kinenkan) is a group of Meiji-era merchant buildings in Akasaki, Kotoura Town, Tottori Prefecture: a main house, gallery building, rice storehouse, pawn storehouse and new storehouse built between 1872 and 1906, all five of which in 2015 were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties.

Kotoura Town says the buildings face north onto the old coast road just east of the small harbour known as Kikuko. The Shiotani family ran coastal shipping out of that harbour from the end of the Edo period into early Meiji, and Tottori Prefecture presents the house as a record of the merchant households that carried local trade.

It is also the birthplace of Shiotani Teiko, a leading figure in Japan's pictorialist "art photography" movement of the early Showa years. A nonprofit, the Shiotani Teiko Photo Project, now owns the buildings and runs them as a photography museum.

The Shiotani Family and the Photographer

The museum records that the family traded under the name Shioya. Magohei, the fourth head, operated coastal ships from Kikuko between late Edo and early Meiji, carrying rice and marine goods on the Japan Sea routes. After the Meiji Restoration the family took the surname Shiotani, and the fifth head, Kyujiro, built the main residence, founded a rice-brokering business and later served as mayor of Akasaki.

Shiotani Teiko, the seventh head, was born in Akasaki on 24 October 1899. The museum notes his membership of pictorialist societies in Tokyo and Kyoto in the early Showa years and his recognition at exhibitions abroad late in life. He died in 1988, aged 89.

A preparatory group formed in 2011 to save his birthplace, and the nonprofit was founded in February 2013. Kotoura Town says it took over the buildings that April, and the museum opened in 2014.

How the Buildings Are Arranged

The Agency for Cultural Affairs descriptions make the layout easy to follow. The main house (1906) faces north onto the road, with the gallery building (1874) attached to its east. The rice storehouse (1872) stands south of the gallery, and the pawn storehouse (1879), the largest on the site, closes the back of the property.

The new storehouse (1902) stands on the south edge of the site, facing the main house across the garden. It is the newest of the surviving storehouses, and the Agency reads it as evidence of how the household filled out its compound over time. The five buildings carry registration numbers 31-0205 to 31-0209.

Visiting the Shiotani Teiko Photography Memorial Museum

According to the museum, it normally opens 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. but is currently open 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. It closes on Tuesdays and occasionally for local festivals. Admission is 300 yen for adults, free for junior high school students and younger, and 200 yen each for groups of 15 or more.

It is about 20 minutes on foot from JR Akasaki Station. Drivers can use the Kotoura Town car park in front of the Kikuko Namishigure Sandogasa monument, about 30 seconds away; large coaches cannot enter. The museum gives its address as 1568 Akasaki (telephone 0858-55-0120), while the Agency lists the buildings at 1561 Akasaki.

Kotoura Town notes that the rice storehouse has been turned into a cafe space looking onto the garden.