ABOUT
The Kamada Soy Sauce Group supports and maintains three local museums.
(1) The Kamada Foundation Museum
We preserve, research and display local historical materials.
(2) The Yotsuya Simon Doll Museum - Tan Ou Sou
Wondrous ball-jointed dolls live in the registered tangible cultural property “Tan Ou Sou”.
(3) Sanuki Museum of Soy Sauce Art by Tsuyoshi Ozawa
You can enjoy playful and parodic soy sauce art painted with traditional soy sauce art techniques.
It would be our pleasure if you could enjoy our unique museums together with Setouchi Triennale and pilgrimage to sacred places.
Kamada Soy Sauce Inc. CEO
Yotsuya Simon Doll Museum - Tan Ou Sou
A Western-style building from the early Showa period that houses 23 dolls created by Simon Yotsuya. The dolls are hidden throughout this mysterious house. Can you find them? Now the fantasy world awaits you...
Sanuki Museum of Soy Sauce Art by Tsuyoshi Ozawa
This museum showcases historical masterpieces reproduced in the soy sauce technique by contemporary artist Tsuyoshi Ozawa and more. This space is filled with playful and parody art.
Kamada Foundation Museum
The museum preserves and displays historical manuscripts, illustrations, and archeological treasures from the local region. Included in the collection are historical data on Tsuken Kume, who was prominent in many and diverse fields such as the improvement and manufacturing of weaponry, surveying local land for potential expansion, and developing evaporation ponds for salt production in Sakaide.
Museum overview
Ever since its establishment in 1918, the Kamada Foundation has contributed greatly to the community by building a library in 1922, the Kamada Foundation Museum in 1925, a social education center in 1927 and more.
Today, the museum preserves and exhibits around 60,000 local artifacts including historical data on Tsuken Kume who built the Sakaide salt fields.
The current museum is located in the renovated library building. It became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 1998.
Nearby attractions
Kofuen garden
Katsutaro Kamada established this garden at the family villa in 1908 to 1910. The garden became a Sakaide City public park in 1956. A two-year renovation was started in 1999 to restore the garden to its original condition. The western section of the park is a traditional Japanese-style garden featuring a walking path around a decorative pond. The eastern section is a western-style park dominated by a lawn.
Kamada Soy Sauce Sakaide Factory shop
This factory shop is located 300 meters west of JR Sakaide Station, adjacent to the Kamada Soy Sauce Head Office Factory and to the north of Kofuen garden. The store carries wide range of products including mail order and commercial use items.
Kamada Soy Sauce Inc.
The soy sauce brewery opened in Sakaide in 1789. Sakaide is known for its abundance of the main ingredients of soy sauce; salt, flour and soybeans. As part of the 230-year history, Dashi Soy Sauce was launched in 1965, and is still made with the original recipe. Dashi Soy Sauce has been a beloved staple for over half a century.
Registered Tangible Cultural Property
Former main store of Kamada Soy Sauce
1853?1869
This main store is located on the north side of the local shopping arcade. The tall two-story structure is built with a tiled hip-and-gable roof and a gable roof in the back. The building has an impressive front facade with large black plaster walls and latticed windows. A 3.5 meter-wide dirt floor hallway runs through the center of the first floor, with the store on the west side. The second floor has a tatami room for receiving customers. The building preserves the air of a mercantile house from the modern period.
Kamada Soy Sauce's former main gate
1868?1882 / relocated around 1955
This is the east gate to the grounds. The tiled gable roof has 5.5-meter ketayuki (beam length) and 5.5-meter harima (crossbeam length). The 15-centimeter wide pillars are made with flat beams (gohira) and set slightly towards the front of the ridge. The large double doors and the single doors on both sides are decorated with stunning hasso, chi and yotsuba metal fittings. The gate has a unique structure with a nagayamon bearing and exposed roof trusses on either side.
Tan Ou Sou main house
1936
The previous residence of the former president of Kamada Soy Sauce stands to the west of the main store.
The outside features a geometric and clear-cut design with a flat roof and tiled walls. The inside has an elegant tatami room on the first floor and a full-fledged Western-style room complete with fireplace on the second floor. With influences of pre-war modernism, this is one of the first reinforced concrete buildings within the prefecture.
Tan Ou Sou black gate
1937
The north gate of the Tan Ou Sou main house is a single-bay yakuimon gate with tiled gable roofing. The pillars are built with 15-centimeter flat lumber (gohira) with a 2.42-meter bay hung with paneled sankarato double doors in the mekurarenji style. On either side of the gate, reinforced concrete walls with tiled roofing extend out at right angles. The gate sets a dignified tone as Tan Ou Sou's main gate to the shopping arcade.
Kamada Foundation Museum (former library)
1922
This was the central facility of the Kamada Foundation, established by Sakaide tycoon Katsutaro Kamada for philanthropic activities, scholarship and various social education purposes. It was built by Takenaka Corporation under the supervision of Seiichi Fuji, a Kagawa prefecture engineer. It is now a valuable artifact documenting the activities of Japan’s early-incorporated foundations, and as one of the first reinforced concrete structural libraries in Japan.