Kanemitsusyuzo Store is a 32-square-meter Store in East Hiroshima, Japan, designed by local design studio Fathom. The project is a renovation of a sake distillery that opened in 1898. From the national highway, you can see the large wall of a Japanese sake factory, which is registered as a tangible cultural heritage. It is like seeing the history of one sake factory after another.

The paneling of burnt cedar, the plaster, and the red brick roof, some of the characteristics of the town. As the three materials overlap, two lines appear at the boundary between them. A beautiful horizontal line created by preserving and accumulating tradition for a long time. For the adjacent direct sales shop, while keeping in mind the horizontal line leading from the sake brewery, a new line was created in which a portion of the building rises organically.

The eaves of the existing building, which were slightly protruding, were made more voluminous in the downward direction to create a new line. Since sake is said to have been first made for the gods, Fathom used plaster to create a space reminiscent of a shrine or Buddhist temple.

The other line is centered on the entrance and divides its functions into left and right. On the right side of the entrance, there is an L-shaped bench with the same function as a veranda, based on a reference to a liquor store in the early Meiji period that had a veranda directly adjacent to the street. On the left side of the entrance, the window sill is sharpened by hand, and glass bottles of sake, which were to be discarded, are crushed, mixed, and sharpened so that the modern technology of glass is sealed like a fossil in the strata of history.