Merchant's House in Takehara, Hiroshima (Hiroshima Takehara shoka)

This 2004 color woodblock print, edition 5 of 80, depicts a merchant's house in the historic port town of Takehara in Hiroshima Prefecture. Takehara prospered during the Edo period through salt production and sake brewing, and its merchant quarter preserves rows of distinctive white-walled storehouses and wooden townhouses with latticed facades. Koichi Maeda records this architectural heritage with documentary precision, capturing the proportions, materials, and weathered textures of a building that has survived centuries of use. The street-level perspective invites the viewer to walk along the narrow lane, past the merchant's entrance, imagining the commercial life that once animated this space. By choosing a specific house in a specific town, Maeda transforms architectural preservation into artistic practice, ensuring these threatened structures persist in printed form even as physical decay continues.