Gateposts of the Main Gate of Aichi Prefectural Handa Commercial High School (Former Main Gate of Aichi Chita District Girls' High School)

A 1921 Gate That Was Retired and Brought Back

The Gateposts of the Main Gate of Aichi Prefectural Handa Commercial High School (Former Main Gate of Aichi Chita District Girls' High School, 愛知県立半田商業高等学校正門門柱) are a Taisho-period gate in Hakusancho, Handa City, Aichi Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in the structures category on 28 June 2017. The posts were built in 1921. The listing covers one set of gateposts, built of concrete, with an opening 9.8 metres wide.

People in Handa call it the Akamon, the red gate. The shafts are faced with small brick tiles, and the colour reads clearly from across the street. Among the thirteen prefectural school gates listed together in 2017, the Handa Commercial High School gateposts are the only ones finished this way.

The gate began life in front of a girls' school. Chita District Girls' High School was one of the secondary schools for girls that Japanese prefectures and districts built in large numbers in the early twentieth century, before the postwar reforms merged the separate boys' and girls' systems. Its main gate went up in 1921, on a spot about 80 metres west of the south-eastern corner of the grounds.

After the war the site passed to Handa Minami High School, and then to Handa Commercial High School, established in 1951. The old gate served until a new entrance was built elsewhere on the campus, and it was closed on 20 November 1961.

That could easily have been the end of it. Instead, the school repaired the gateposts in 1995 as part of its seventieth anniversary programme, finishing the work on 1 November of that year. In 2008 the posts were dismantled and rebuilt on their present site, and since 1 September 2008 they have served again as the school's main gate.

Why the Gateposts Were Registered

Japan protects historic buildings under two parallel systems. The older and stricter one is reserved for a small number of buildings under close state control. Registration is the lighter of the two: an owner accepts a duty to notify the state before altering or demolishing the property, and in exchange the building gains public standing and some tax relief. The Handa Commercial High School gateposts belong to the second system.

The criterion cited in the listing is that the structure serves as a model of design. On 10 March 2017 the Council for Cultural Affairs recommended, in a single batch, the working gateposts of thirteen Aichi prefectural high schools, beginning with Asahigaoka. The Handa posts carry registration number 23-0486.

Set against the other twelve, this gate is the outlier. Most of the group are reinforced concrete with a washed-aggregate finish, or cut granite, and follow the straight-lined standard drawings of the prefectural works section. Only Handa is tiled.

The proportions differ too. Each main post is roughly 56 centimetres square in plan and each side post about 45 centimetres, some seven-tenths the bulk of contemporary reinforced concrete gateposts elsewhere in the prefecture. The prefectural survey treats that slenderness as evidence that the structural system behind the tile is not the same as its neighbours'.

Reading the Brick and the Granite

Stand in front of the Handa Commercial High School gateposts and the first thing to register is the horizontal rhythm. Three granite bands cut across each shaft, dividing the tiled surface into four panels. The tiles themselves average 11 centimetres wide by 6 centimetres high, so a fine, repetitive grain runs behind the broad stone lines.

Granite appears at the base as well, and again at the top, where a carved cap stone supports a spherical lamp. Photographs printed in the school's seventieth anniversary volume indicate that the lamp on the main posts dates from the original construction.

The main posts rise 2.95 metres and the side posts 2.60 metres. These are modest numbers for a school gate, and the slender shafts make the composition look taller than it measures. A few steps back from the kerb gives a better view of how the granite bands line up with the lamps than standing directly beneath them does.

The side posts repeat the main posts exactly in treatment, with the same tile coursing and the same three granite bands, reduced in size. All four were drawn as one family.

Visiting the Gate

The Handa Commercial High School gateposts are a working school entrance, not a monument with opening hours. There is no visitor programme, no admission time, and no fee. The posts stand on the boundary of the grounds, so the exterior can be seen from the public road that runs in front of them.

Photography from the road is not restricted, but students pass through the gate in numbers at the start and end of the school day, and it is worth choosing a quieter hour. Anyone who wants to enter the grounds, or to photograph the gate in detail, should contact the school in advance.

Chita-Handa Station on the Meitetsu Kowa Line is the nearest stop, about 350 metres to the north-east of the school and roughly five minutes on foot. Handa Station on the JR Taketoyo Line lies some 700 metres away, about fifteen minutes' walk. Both approaches cross flat streets in the middle of town.

One thing to keep in mind on site: the ground under the gate is not the original ground. What stands here today was reassembled in 2008, about 80 metres from where the posts were first raised in 1921.