Takasagoya (Castle Town Tottori Community Center) Storehouse No. 1

Two Storehouses Under One Front Roof

Takasagoya (Castle Town Tottori Community Center) Storehouse No. 1 (高砂屋（城下町とっとり交流館）蔵一, kura-ichi) is a late-Meiji earthen storehouse in Motodaiku-cho, Tottori City, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 31 July 2007.

It stands at the eastern end of the property, behind the main house, and is really two storehouses joined by a shared roofed forecourt, or kuramae. The east block measures 9 metres by 4 metres, the west block 6 metres by 4 metres. Both are two-storey Dozo-zukuri buildings with gabled Kirizuma-zukuri roofs of Sangawara-buki tile, and together they cover 70 square metres.

A kuramae is a covered work area in front of a storehouse door, where goods were loaded and unloaded out of the rain. At Takasagoya Storehouse No. 1 it also ties the two blocks together, so from the front you see two gable ends side by side with a low roof running across both.

Three storehouses stand in a row behind the house, Nos. 1, 2 and 3 from east to west. Nos. 1 and 3 are entered from the gable end (Tsumairi); No. 2, between them, is entered from the long side (Hirairi).

Why It Was Registered: Shippo Tilework and Plaster Relief

The registry entry goes out of its way to call Storehouse No. 1 impressive, and the reason is its plasterwork.

The lower front walls on both floors are finished in Namako-kabe: flat tiles fixed to the wall with their joints built up into rounded ridges of white Shikkui lime plaster. The usual pattern is a simple diagonal grid. Here the ridges trace a shippo design of overlapping, interlinked circles. Laying curved joints cleanly takes far more skill and plaster than a grid, and choosing it for a working storehouse says something about the owner's pride.

Around the doors and on the Mochiokuri brackets beneath the window hoods, plasterers modelled relief ornament by trowel in wet lime, carrying decoration right down to the smallest supporting parts.

The effort is concentrated on the front. Elsewhere on the site, Storehouses No. 2 and No. 3 have boarded side walls, and the same logic applies throughout: spend where people in the garden will look.

What to Look For

View the namako wall twice, close up and from a distance. Near the wall, raking light throws shadows off the raised joints and the circles snap into focus; a few paces back, the same surface softens into a fine grey-and-white texture.

Look up under the window hoods as well. The plaster brackets sit above eye level and are easy to miss, yet the registry lists them alongside the door surrounds.

Step under the kuramae roof and the two doors appear side by side. The difference in length between the 9-metre and 6-metre blocks is easiest to grasp from inside this forecourt.

Visiting Storehouse No. 1

The exterior can be seen from the garden whenever the house is open. The house's website describes two storehouse spaces in use: the east storehouse, known as Hosai-gura, which displays verses by the Tottori-born free-verse haiku poet Ozaki Hosai written out by local calligraphers, and the Kazai-gura Gallery, lent free of charge to local groups.

The site does not say which registered building these correspond to. The two-block Takasagoya Storehouse No. 1 is the likeliest candidate, but ask at reception if you want to be sure.

Because the gallery programme changes, access to the interior and the rules on photography both depend on what is on show.