Makita Gumi Head Office (former Nanto Shoko Main Store)

One Office Building, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property since 2002

Makita Gumi Head Office (former Nanto Shoko Main Store) (牧田組本社（旧南島商行本店）, Makitagumi Honsha, Kyu-Minamijima Shoko Honten in the record's reading) stands at 1-18-33 Shoseimachi, Imizu City, Toyama Prefecture, a Taisho-period office building entered on the register of tangible cultural properties on 14 February 2002. It is a registered property rather than a designated one.

The quantity is one building. The prefecture's record gives the owner as a private individual.

The structure is timber, two-storeyed, roofed in copper, with a floor area of 81 square metres. The date field reads Taisho and the year field 1915.

Brick Laid over a Timber Frame

It looks like a building of brick and stone, but its frame is of timber.

The Agency records brown brick laid over a timber frame, with granite used for the dado, corner piers, string courses and elsewhere.

The frame is what carries the building. A string course is a band projecting across the upper wall as ornament. The brick is a facing, not the structure.

Uno Pharmacy is a three-storeyed timber building given a tiled front in the signboard style.

This too lays another material over timber, but the material is brick, with granite added at the base, the corners and the string courses. It differs from the Ota power station, which is built of stone itself.

The prefecture's record says it carries a hint of the Renaissance style.

Symmetry About the Entrance

The front is arranged symmetrically on the axis of a central entrance.

The Agency records a front in which sash windows are set symmetrically either side of an entrance framed by heavy stone piers projecting forward.

A sash window opens by sliding glazed frames up and down.

Stone piers stand out either side of the door, with matching windows to left and right. On a timber building, the stone piers give weight.

At the Ogiwara main house, two parts join at a right angle to make an L-shape.

Here a single front is balanced out from its centre. As the face of an office, the front is set in balance.

The Present Name Outside, the Former Name in Brackets

One name holds the names of two periods.

The prefecture's record says that, though now used as the head office of Makita Gumi, it was built in 1915 as the main office of Minamijima Shoko, a shipping business. Such a business carried cargo by ship.

Outside the brackets stands the present head office of Makita Gumi; inside, with the word former, the main office of Minamijima Shoko.

At the former Yamanaka main house, the word former and the family name stand outside and the present name inside the brackets.

Here it is the other way about: the present outside and the past within. From main office to head office, it has served as an office throughout.

The Agency closes that this office building, built at the mouth of a river flowing into Toyama Bay, tells of the modernisation of shipping at the port of Fushiki.

Visiting

The building stands at 1-18-33 Shoseimachi, Imizu City, Toyama Prefecture, at the mouth of the river.

It is a two-storeyed timber building of 81 square metres with a copper roof.

The record reads the name in the brackets as Minamijima. The English name in the database gives Nanto Shoko, a different reading.

It is in use as a company's head office, so opening and terms follow the owner's arrangements. Check before travelling.

The prefecture's record calls it a landmark that tells of the modernisation of shipping at the port of Fushiki.