During my time & travels in Japan I’ve seen plenty of old buildings. My main focus was of course castles but along the way I started to notice some stubby & sturdy looking white-plastered storehouses. Surprising to me was that these buildings are dotted all over the place and in some places you’ll see row upon row of them (many crumbling) such as in Kurashiki near Okayama or, as in the attached photo, Ako castle in Hyōgo Prefecture.

The white plaster that cover the walls act not only as a fire retardant but goes a long way to giving these buildings their uniqueness and beauty. It was during the Edo (1603-1868) and Meiji (1868-1912) periods that it became fashionable to carve or form plaster into decorative aspects of the storehouse’s overall design. This was known as Kote-e 鏝絵, which translates directly as trowel pictures.

Copyright © The Yomiuri Shimbun

There isn’t a great deal of pictures & information about but here are some links:

Kote-e in Tottori (Awesome!)here
A basic Google image search – here
A Yomiuri news article – here
Kote-e in Hiji, Oita – here