Tajika Family Residence Nagayamon Gate

The gate on the south street

The Tajika Family Residence Nagayamon Gate (田近家住宅長屋門, Tajika-ke Jūtaku Nagayamon) in Nishikoya, Amagasaki City, Hyogo Prefecture, is the gatehouse that serves as the front entrance of the Tajika compound; it took its present form around 1887 and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on April 28, 2009 (number 28-0390). Amagasaki City says it began as a building of the very end of the Edo period and was remodelled in those years.

The Tajika Family Residence Nagayamon Gate stands on the south edge of the plot, a little east of centre, and gives the house its entrance from the street. The main house faces it from the north.

Gate and rooms under one roof

It is a single-storey timber building of 13 metres by 4 metres, with a building area of 52 m², under a gabled roof of pantiles with an east-west ridge.

The gateway is set toward the west end and hung with double doors and a wicket door, while the eastern 8.8 metres of the building is given over to rooms. That is the classic nagayamon arrangement, gate and rooms in a single long block, and from the street it reads as an opening at one end and a long wall running east.

The walls are finished in black plaster above a skirting of vertical boards, the same dark finish as the main house, so the gate on the street and the house behind it match.

Waterway, hedge and gate

In the Agency for Cultural Affairs' words, the Tajika Family Residence Nagayamon Gate works with the roadside waterway and hedge to give the residence its formal frontage. Seen from the street, the channel, the hedge and the black gatehouse stack up into the public face of the house.

According to Amagasaki City, the main house was remodelled in the same years, so gate and house appear to have been renewed together.

Visiting

The gatehouse faces the street on the south side and its exterior can be seen from there. Visitors cannot go through the gate; it is still the household's entrance, so it is best not to linger in front of it.

The background of the estate, what can be seen from the street and directions are on the Tajika Family Residence page.