Amano Family Residence Side Gate, Rear Gate and Wall

About the Amano Family Residence Side Gate, Rear Gate and Wall

The Amano Family Residence Side Gate, Rear Gate and Wall (天野家住宅通用門・裏門及び塀, Amano-ke Jūtaku Tsūyōmon, Uramon oyobi Hei) is a reinforced concrete boundary wall with two gates, built in 1927 on the Amano family estate in Mimigai, Odaka Ward, Minamisoma City, Fukushima Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2018.

The Amano Family Residence Side Gate, Rear Gate and Wall is registered as a single structure. The wall runs 100 m in total along the south and east boundaries of the estate; the side gate in it is 2.8 m wide and the rear gate 2.1 m wide.

Why the Walls and Gates Were Registered

The Amano Family Residence Side Gate, Rear Gate and Wall was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property for its contribution to the historic landscape, under registration number 07-0207, the last of the estate's six numbers.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs credits it with giving the estate's formal layout a solid, dignified finish. The Council for Cultural Affairs report of 20 July 2018 says much the same: together with the stone Main Gate, these concrete walls and gates hold the large property together.

They were built in 1927, the same year as the Main Gate. A hundred metres of reinforced concrete walling around a country house at that date says a good deal about the scale of the Amano family's building programme in the early Showa years.

What to Look For in the Amano Walls and Gates

Along the south side, the wall of the Amano Family Residence Side Gate, Rear Gate and Wall meets the Main Gate at its centre. The side gate opens at the western end of the south wall, and the rear gate at the northern end of the east wall. If the Main Gate was for guests, the positions suggest the side gate served everyday comings and goings and the rear gate the back of the estate.

The finishes are chosen with care. The base of the wall and its coping stones are granite, with the wall face between them rendered in mortar. The gate piers have a washed concrete finish, araidashi, in which the surface was rinsed while still green to expose the gravel beneath.

The granite at top and bottom is the same stone as the Main Gate. Clamping the concrete between bands of granite ties the new material to the stone gate, so the whole street front reads as one composition. The Amano Family Residence Side Gate, Rear Gate and Wall shows a family using reinforced concrete but dressing it to suit the dignity of its granite gateway.

Seeing the Amano Family Residence Side Gate, Rear Gate and Wall

The Amano Family Residence Side Gate, Rear Gate and Wall forms the boundary of a private home, and its gates cannot be used to enter the grounds.

Because the wall runs along the south and east edges of the estate, it is probably the part most easily seen from outside, though this has not been checked on site. Please do not touch the walls or gates, and photograph only from the public road.