Yamamoto Family Residence Interior 1

Yamamoto Family Residence: Inner Storehouse No. 1 (Uchigura Ichi)

Where the main house is black, this storehouse is white. It stands on a high base of dressed granite, its walls finished in white lime plaster, with a band of vertical boarding protecting the lower courses. Set behind the shop frontage, it is the building that holds the view together when you look at the compound from the west.

This is the first of two inner storehouses, or uchigura, in the residence of Yamamoto Katsunosuke Shōten, the palm-fibre and medicinal-herb merchants of Sakai in Kainan, Wakayama Prefecture. An uchigura is a private storehouse kept behind the living quarters for the household's own goods, as distinct from the misegura that face the street and serve the shop. This one was built in 1923, during the Taishō era, when the firm founded by Yamamoto Katsunosuke in 1880 was at its height.

The form of the storehouse

The building stands northwest of the first shop storehouse, a dozō of two storeys whose thick earthen walls are built up in the fireproof storehouse technique and then coated in white plaster. It measures three and a half bays along its length and two bays across, with the ridge running north to south, under a gabled roof of hongawara formal tiling. The doorway sits toward the south end of the east face, sheltered by a small pent roof.

Two details repay attention. The granite plinth is unusually tall, raising the whole storehouse and its precious contents clear of damp and flood. And the roof is carried on noboribari, sloping beams that follow the pitch of the roof rather than lying flat, a sturdy framing choice suited to the weight of a tiled storehouse.

Why it is registered, and what makes it valuable

Inner Storehouse No. 1 was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 2 October 2007 (registration number 30-0124). Registration, introduced in 1996, is a lighter form of protection than designation as an Important Cultural Property, relying on notification and guidance rather than strict permits; it was created to safeguard the broad stock of modern buildings at risk of quiet disappearance. The storehouse qualifies for contributing to the historic landscape of the country.

Its worth is bound up with the group it belongs to. The white storehouses behind the black main house, all raised on pale granite, give the Yamamoto compound much of its distinctive look, and this one in particular anchors the composition seen from the west. Storehouses are rarely glamorous on their own, but kept in their original arrangement they show how a thriving Taishō merchant organised the back of his property as carefully as its street face.

What to look for

Look first at the colour contrast that runs through the compound: the dark plaster of the dwelling against the white plaster of the storehouses, the whole lot lifted on grey granite. The Kaneichi crest, the family house mark, appears on storehouse walls and on round roof tiles, so it is worth scanning the eaves for it. From the lane to the west the white gabled bulk of this storehouse reads clearly above the granite base.

As with the rest of the residence, this is a working business rather than a museum. The storehouse exteriors can be appreciated from the public road; the interiors are not on regular public view, so it is best to plan around the streetscape.