Takeuchi Genzo Memorial Museum (former Kosugi Town Hall)

A Showa Town Hall Decorated in Plaster Relief

The Takeuchi Genzo Memorial Museum (former Kosugi Town Hall) (竹内源造記念館（旧小杉町役場庁舎）) is a two-storey timber former town hall built in 1934 in Toba, Imizu City, Toyama Prefecture, which in 2014 was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the town hall of old Kosugi, in the centre of the town, with weatherboarded walls, an entrance porch at the centre of the front and a turret on the middle of the roof. It is tiled and covers 219 square metres.

The Agency records a renovation in 1959 and relocation in 2013. The building belongs to Imizu City and was registered as a building that would not be easy to reproduce.

Takeuchi Genzo, Master Plasterer

The museum takes its name from the plasterer who decorated the building. The Kosugi town development council, which runs the museum, says Takeuchi Genzo was born into a Kosugi plastering family in 1886, took on plaster work for temples, shrines, storehouses, banks and public buildings across western Toyama, and died in 1942 at the age of 56.

His medium was kote-e, relief pictures built up in lime plaster with the plasterer's trowel. The Imizu tourism association describes him as a plaster sculptor whose work combines the qualities of painting and sculpture.

After the building ceased to serve as a town hall, it opened as the Takeuchi Genzo Memorial Museum in 2001, according to the tourism association, and reopened after renewal on 12 April 2014.

What to Look For

Stand in front and look up above the porch. The Agency notes an acanthus pattern in plaster relief on the gable wall under the mansard-style front roof: the leaf motif of Western column capitals, modelled here in lime plaster.

Upstairs, the former council chamber has a phoenix in plaster relief. The Agency singles out these two as the building's defining features, both fine examples of Genzo's work.

The development council describes a symmetrical front centred on the carriage porch, said to be modelled on Yasuda Auditorium at the University of Tokyo. Inside hangs Twin Dragons, a plaster relief by Genzo 17 metres long, moved from an old storehouse in Tonami.

Visiting the Takeuchi Genzo Memorial Museum

The Takeuchi Genzo Memorial Museum is open as one of Imizu City's cultural facilities. The city gives opening hours of 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (last entry 4:30 p.m. according to the tourism association), closed on Mondays (or the following day after a holiday) and from 29 December to 3 January. Admission is free.

It is about 10 minutes on foot from Kosugi Station on the Ainokaze Toyama Railway, or about 15 minutes by car from the Kosugi interchange on the Hokuriku Expressway. Enquiries: 0766-55-3288. The museum also runs workshops in kote-e and other lime plaster crafts.