Yamamoto Katsunosuke Shoten Shop Storehouse No. 1

Yamamoto Katsunosuke Shoten Shop Storehouse No. 1

Yamamoto Katsunosuke Shoten Shop Storehouse No. 1 (山本勝之助商店店蔵一, Misegura Ichi) is a two-storey earthen-walled merchandise warehouse built in the middle of the Taisho era (1912 to 1926) on National Route 370 in Sakai, Kainan City, Wakayama Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on October 2, 2007.

It stands immediately west of the firm's black-plastered office, its white gable turned to the road. Yamamoto Katsunosuke Shoten, a dealer in palm fibre and Japanese pepper founded in 1880, built it to hold stock as the business grew through the Taisho years.

A note on the name. The Japanese reading, misegura, is the same word used in eastern Japan for fireproof storehouse buildings that double as shopfronts (Misegura). This is not one of those. Here the term simply means a storehouse belonging to the shop, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs describes Yamamoto Katsunosuke Shoten Shop Storehouse No. 1 plainly as a merchandise warehouse.

How it is built

According to the agency's database, Shop Storehouse No. 1 is 7 Ken long and 4 ken wide, with a building area of 128 square metres, the largest of the firm's three shop storehouses. It is built in the Dozo-zukuri manner, with thick plastered earthen walls, and runs north to south under a gabled roof (Kirizuma-zukuri) of pantiles (Sangawara-buki). Because the ridge runs at right angles to the road, the building presents its gable end to the street (Tsumairi).

Along the east side a tiled lean-to roof shelters a kuramae, the covered work area in front of a storehouse door where goods could be moved in and out in any weather. At Storehouse No. 1 that work area faces the office.

The walls are white lime plaster (Shikkui), the lower section is sheathed in iron plate, and the upper floor has small windows. The roof is framed with rising beams (noboribari) that follow the pitch of the roof, a method that leaves more open space under the rafters than the post-and-strut Wagoya system. The Wakayama Society of Architects recorded surprise at the height of the interior, and notes that old jottings written on the beams and posts are still legible.

Why it was registered

Yamamoto Katsunosuke Shoten Shop Storehouse No. 1 was registered, as number 30-0120, under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the nation; the agency's note ends by saying it helps form a historic streetscape. It was registered on the same day as the office, Shop Storehouses No. 2 and No. 3, and seven structures of the Yamamoto Family Residence, eleven buildings that together show one merchant compound.

Set beside the black office, the white gable of No. 1 produces the alternating dark and light that gives this stretch of road its character. Behind it to the northwest stands the first inner storehouse of the Yamamoto Family Residence, so that office, merchandise store and household store step back from the road in sequence. At 128 square metres, No. 1 also shows how much stock a Taisho-era wholesaler expected to hold.

What to look for

The gable facing the road

From across Route 370 the triangle of the gable fills your view: white plaster, the small upper windows, then the iron-clad lower wall, three materials stacked one above the other.

Iron plate at the base

Storehouse walls are usually protected at the base with boards or tiles. Here the builders used iron plate, a practical choice for a wall right on the roadside where splashing mud and passing carts would do damage. Compare it with Shop Storehouse No. 2 directly across the road, whose base is clad in vertical boards.

The work area by the office

Look at how far the east eave projects and where the doors sit beneath it. The warehouse and the office were plainly meant to work as a pair. The interior is closed, so the rising-beam roof and the writing on the timbers are rarely seen by visitors.

Visiting

Yamamoto Katsunosuke Shoten Shop Storehouse No. 1 is a working company building and is not open inside; you see it from National Route 370, and the gable is best viewed from the south side of the road. The road narrows along the Yamamoto buildings, so keep to the edge and watch for traffic. We found no stated restriction on photographing the exterior from the road, but please stay off the property.

By public transport, take the Orange Bus bound for Tozanguchi from stop 6 at JR Kainan Station and ride about 10 minutes to Kameike Koen; the stop is in front of the shop. By car, leave the Hanwa Expressway at Kainan-Higashi Interchange and drive east on Route 370 for about 3 kilometres, roughly 5 minutes. The official website does not mention visitor parking.