川越に今も残る蔵造りの町並み。
この川越に蔵造りの建物が立ち並ぶようになったきっかけは、明治26年の大火事だったと言われています。
当時の未曾有の大火災で焼け残った建物が伝統的な工法による蔵造りの建物だったことに着目し、商人たちがこぞってこの工法を取り入れたことが始まりだそうです。
既に耐火建築として、レンガ造りや石積みの近代的な建物も造られていましたが、川越商人たちは伝統的な蔵造り建物を選択し、伝統工法にレンガや大谷石、御影石などの新しい建築資材も柔軟に取り入れたと言います。
There are still remain streets of warehouse building in Kawagoe.
This warehouse buildings of Kawagoe are located so because of a big fire of 1893, it is said.
Concerning buildings that survived in a large unprecedented fire of that time, it was warehouse buildings constructed with traditional method, and it seems that merchants started to adopt this method by common consent.
As modern buildings was built of bricks and stones as already fireproof construction, Kawagoe merchants selected the traditional way to construct buildings with flexibility, including traditional method Oya and new building materials, such as granite, it is said.
