Nagayamon

What a nagayamon is

A nagayamon is a gate built as one range with rooms to either side of it, so that a long building lies across the front of the property with a passage cut through its centre.

The gatehouse at the Nagaya Residence in Gifu Prefecture, from the later Edo period, is described as a Kirizuma-zukuri gate facing east to the south-east of the main house, roofed in sheet metal like the house itself though apparently once covered in cedar bark, with cantilevered eaves front and back giving a deep overhang. The entry calls it an indispensable element of a pre-modern village headman's residence.

What occupies the flanking rooms varies. The consulting room and barn at the Kawakubo Residence in Kochi Prefecture, from the early Meiji period, are described as a building in this form with a gate about 2.7 metres wide at its centre, a consulting room three bays deep to the right and a barn of two bays square to the left, with a further outbuilding projecting west. The entry values it as a surviving example of a country doctor's premises.

Some are substantial. A gate at Higashi Honganji in Kyoto is recorded as a building of this type covering 230.02 square metres over two storeys, Irimoya-zukuri with guard posts under curved gables to either side and a formal tiled roof.

A frontage that declares standing

Being the first building a visitor sees, the gatehouse carries the standing of the family. The gatehouse of the Inaba Residence in Kyoto Prefecture, from the late Edo period, is described as unusual in having two storeys with the upper one projecting forward, and a gabled pantiled roof carrying Udatsu, so that it resembles the main house of a Machiya. The entry reads it as displaying the standing of a wealthy merchant to the road.

Records also describe buildings merely resembling one. The Kansei storehouse at the Sakai brewery in Nagano Prefecture, from the later Edo period, is described as a long two-storey plastered storehouse of about 22 metres, gabled and pantiled, presenting the outward form of a gatehouse with a passage opened at its centre, its lower floor originally a rice store.

When visiting, look at what fills the wings. Barns, servants' quarters and consulting rooms all appear there, and what a family did shows up in those rooms. Looking only at the gate means missing most of the building.