Takasagoya (Castle Town Tottori Community Center) Shop Wing

The Shop Front of a Cotton Merchant

Takasagoya (Castle Town Tottori Community Center) Shop Wing (高砂屋（城下町とっとり交流館）店舗棟, tenpo-to) is the late-Meiji shop building of a merchant house in Motodaiku-cho, Tottori City, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 31 July 2007.

It is a two-storey timber building under a Sangawara-buki tiled roof, 135 square metres in footprint, standing directly on the street. With the Residential Wing next door to the west it forms the main house of Takasagoya, the Ikeuchi family's cotton business: this side was for trade, the other for living. The national registry describes the Residential Wing as plain by comparison, so the job of impressing the street fell to the shop.

The construction date depends on whom you ask. The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives only "late Meiji". A 2003 petition to the city assembly dates the shop to 1892, and the website of the company that carries on the family business credits Ikeuchi Shinzo, the tenth head of the house, with building it in the middle of the Meiji era.

In 2004 the Takasagoya Shop Wing and its neighbour were moved to their present position by Hikiya, a method in which a building is jacked up and shifted whole rather than taken apart.

Why It Was Registered: Beams Over the Earthen Floor

Like the other five buildings on the site, the Shop Wing was registered for contributing to the historic landscape. The registry description, though, points specifically to its structure.

Heavy lintel beams called sashigamoi span the full width of the frontage, locking into thick posts to open up the front of the building. Behind them lies a broad Doma, the earth-floored working space of a Japanese shop, and the choba, the raised counter where accounts were kept. That combination is the heart of the Takasagoya Shop Wing.

Overhead runs a pine beam of unusual depth and length. The registry reads it as evidence of how well the business was doing, and the house's own guide lists the same features, a doma five Ken long, a beam cut from a single tree and a counter projecting into the doma, as the standard make-up of a Meiji merchant's shop.

Upstairs is a formal Zashiki room whose Nageshi rails, carved Ranma transoms, sliding doors and paper screens the guide describes as largely in their original state.

What to Look For

Step onto the doma and look up first. The pine beam crosses the space overhead, and its sheer depth is what you notice. Together with the lintels, it is what allows such a wide floor with so few walls.

Then turn toward the street and look high. The sashigamoi running the width of the facade is what lets the front stay so open with so few posts; it is easy to walk under without noticing.

The choba juts out at the back of the doma. Standing near the entrance and looking inward gives you a customer's-eye view of the distance between the door and the merchant's counter.

Visiting the Shop Wing

The Takasagoya Shop Wing doubles as the entrance to the whole house, so you walk straight from the street onto the doma. Admission is free, and the house is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (last entry 4:30 p.m.), closed Mondays. The doma now serves as a sales floor for Tottori crafts, and the beams and lintels read best if you look above the display shelves.

The upstairs tatami room and storage room are rented out for meetings. According to the city tourism site you may view them free when they are not booked, but not while in use, so ask at the reception desk if you want to go up.

There is no published photography policy. Merchandise and other visitors can end up in frame, so check at reception before photographing the interior.