Tanada Family House Tool Storehouse

The Larger of the Two Storehouses

Tanada Family Residence Tool Storehouse (棚田家住宅道具蔵, also written Tanada-ke Jūtaku Dōgugura) is a single-storey earthen-walled storehouse at 14-26 Nishikimachi, Fushiki, Takaoka City, Toyama Prefecture, built around 1890 and entered on Japan's national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 12 June 1997.

At 79 square metres it is the largest of the three storehouses on the property, and the national record calls it a large dozō, using the word for the thick-earth-walled type. It stands at the northwest corner of the compound, beside the Clothing Storehouse, and the two together form the composed rear enclosure of the residence.

Fushiki had grown rich on freight. The harbour at the mouth of the Oyabe River carried the Kaga domain's rice tax to Osaka through the seventeenth century, and once northern routes opened to Hokkaido in the eighteenth, local families bought their own kitamaebune cargo ships. The Tanada worked in that trade from the Edo period into Meiji, then in 1918 founded a timber company that grew into sawmilling, coal dealing, roof-tile production and construction. A household running businesses of that spread needed somewhere to keep its equipment.

Two Storehouses, Read Against Each Other

The most interesting thing about this building is that it has a near-twin standing next to it, and the official description spends its words on the differences rather than the similarities. Both storehouses are gabled and roofed in sangawara clay pantiles. The framing of the doorway follows the same pattern in each. Then the record starts listing where they part company.

The door of the Tool Storehouse sits off-centre, set toward the left of the front elevation, rather than in the middle. And it has no fire door, which the record explicitly notes as a difference from the Clothing Storehouse next to it. Read those two facts together and the building's job comes into focus. Tools and equipment came out and went back constantly, in bulk, sometimes in armfuls; an off-centre opening leaves a longer run of uninterrupted wall inside for stacking. Clothing, by contrast, was taken out for a wedding and put away again, and it was worth an extra layer of protection against fire.

The approach differs too. Where the Clothing Storehouse is reached along a veranda continuous with the main house, the Tool Storehouse has its own kuramae, a receiving space in front of the door laid partly in boards and partly in tatami. A tatami-matted room in front of a tool store is worth pausing over. It means things were unpacked, sorted, examined and perhaps shown here, seated, rather than simply carried through.

Anyone comparing sources should know that the descriptive text for this building spells the neighbouring storehouse 衣裳蔵, while its own registered name is 衣装蔵. The two spellings refer to one building.

Status, Damage and Where to Go Instead

The storehouse holds a Registered Tangible Cultural Property status rather than designation as an Important Cultural Property or National Treasure. Registration came in with the 1996 revision of the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties as a lighter framework: owners notify the authorities of alterations instead of applying for permission, which suits buildings that remain in ordinary use. Registration number here is 16-0009, the third of four consecutive numbers covering the whole Tanada compound, all registered on the same day in the third national registration round.

On 1 January 2024 the Noto Peninsula Earthquake caused liquefaction across the Fushiki district. The ground under the Tanada property heaved and subsided, the buildings suffered, and the head of the family judged repair impossible. Demolition at public expense became the expected course, as it did for many damaged houses in the neighbourhood. The family's business papers, fifty-five years of records beginning in 1901, were donated to the Takaoka Municipal Museum in 2025.

In April 2026 a preservation foundation, Kitamae Bunka Trust, was formed by architects and specialists to keep the buildings and bring them back into community use, and full demolition was avoided. A public forum followed at the Fushiki Community Centre on 4 July 2026. What exists now is a plan and a commitment, not a finished building open to callers.

So the Tool Storehouse cannot be visited. There is no admission fee, no opening hours, and no way inside. It is private property in damaged condition and should be treated accordingly: stay on the public street, and do not photograph into the compound.

Ten minutes' walk away, the Fushiki Kitamaebune Museum at 7-49 Fushiki Furukokufu lets you do what this property does not allow. The former Akimoto Residence, designated by Takaoka City in 1998, belonged to a shipping family whose trading name was Honeya and who owned vessels called the Chōseimaru and the Kōtokumaru. Its tool storehouse and clothing storehouse both carry lookout towers used to watch the harbour, and visitors climb into them. Hours are 9:00 to 16:30, closed Tuesdays and 29 December to 3 January. Admission is 300 yen for high-school students and above, 240 yen for groups of twenty or more and for visitors aged 65 and over, free for junior-high pupils and younger. The museum is about ten minutes on foot from Fushiki Station on the JR Himi Line, or three minutes from the Fushiki Nishikimachi bus stop served by Kaetsunō Bus.