This paper reports the basic research and the background of the Old Brick Warehouse of the Commercial Bank of Honjo, completed in 1896, Honjo city, Saitama prefecture. This paper, is the first of the follow-through repots on this architecture.

 The results of this study are shown as bellow,
 (1) By referring to “Photography on Buildings by the Shimizu-kata” (volume 2), we have found out that the Warehouse was designed by Sotaro OKAMOTO and Teikichi SHIMIZU, both company staff of Shimizu-ten and so it was built by the company in 1896.
 (2) By measuring the plans and sections, we reported basic information of this brick warehouse.
 (3) This brick warehouse was built for cocoon collateral. By studying its backgrounds, it was made clear that this collateral had two functions, “banking” and “warehousing”. From mid-Meiji era to Taisyo era, in Honjo and Maebashi city, many small and mid-sized businesses in the silk industry were established. These influenced cocoon collaterals as building-types to arise.
 (4) The warehouse is capable in taking custody of cocoon throughout the year. Which was verified by examining the plan, section and joinery of opening sections. And, this mechanism fulfills the requisition in such as generalized methods marked in “Jitsuyo Sanso-syo” (Tamiji ISHII. Yuurindo, Tokyo, Japan. 1889) of Meiji era.

 From the above, it could be said that this brick warehouse shows a stage of development in silk industry under the promotion of new industry in Japan. These banks which support the small and mid-sized companies of the silk industry has vitalized the cocoon market, enriched the silk-raising farmers in Honjo and Maebashi city and so forth. These private banks were keys to the regional economy and so this possibly could be the reason it had enough facility investments.

 In this paper, we only refer to the features of this warehouse under regional history. But hereon, we will report on the technique of the brick-works and wood-works. Because this warehouse is thought to be built with a high level of technical capability of the mid-Meiji era, since it is recorded as one of the main buildings of Shimizu-ten. Thus, we plan to compare this warehouse to other brickworks and the manuals of the same period.

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