Five brick warehouses in a row. The Akarenga Park in Maizuru preserves five brick storehouses built for the former navy, and because they were built as storehouses the interiors are exactly what you would expect: exposed columns and beams, high ceilings, very few windows and no attempt at grace. They now hold exhibitions and events, and the original purpose is obvious to anyone the moment they step inside and look up. The harbour is immediately alongside and sightseeing boats come in, and seeing the row from the water explains the siting better than any plan or panel could. They stand at the edge of the sea because what they held arrived by it and left the same way. The brickwork is English bond and was laid by people who had learned the technique recently.

Maizuru works in shipbuilding and port operations, and Kyoto is about two hours away by express bus over the hills. The town centre and the harbour are some distance apart, so a car makes moving between them a good deal easier.

Buildings keep the shape of their first purpose long after that purpose has disappeared, whatever is subsequently done to the inside of them. Maizuru was chosen as a naval base for the shape of its inlet, which is deep and narrow and easy to defend, and the town that grew here grew for that reason alone. The warehouses are part of a much larger set, and not all of them are open. What is preserved is a fraction of what was built, which is worth knowing before you decide the scale is modest. What is good about this place is that nobody has tried to disguise the fact, or to soften it with fittings that would have made the rooms more comfortable and less legible.