Zorokuen Gate 1 (Kitamae Ship Owner's Residence, Former Sakaya Choichiro Family Residence)

A small gate beside the entrance

Zorokuen Gate 1 is a timber gate in Hashitatemachi, Kaga City, Ishikawa Prefecture, built during the Taisho era between 1912 and 1925 and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 17 February 1999.

It is 1.8 metres wide, with 3.6 metres of wall attached. Zorokuen Gate 1 stands just north of the main entrance to the house, a plain roofed gate that doubles as a length of wall. Sliding board doors fill the opening, one bay across.

This is not the gate that faces the world. It divides the inner part of the grounds, because the gate for receiving guests and the gate the household used every day were not the same thing.

A boundary inside the boundary

The criterion was contribution to the historic landscape, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs adds that the gate is valuable for what it shows of everyday life on the estate.

A gate is usually imagined on the perimeter, but a large property has internal edges too. Reception rooms had to be kept apart from working areas, and the route for guests from the route for the family. Zorokuen Gate 1 marks that line, and its width of one bay follows from the job: enough for a person and a load, no more.

Black plaster above, boards below

The walls on either side are the thing to look at. They are built in the Shinkabe manner with the posts left exposed, plastered black above and boarded vertically below the waist. The storehouses on the estate use white plaster; here the choice went the other way.

Black plaster is made by working pigment such as pine soot into the mix and polishing the surface, which takes longer than a white finish. Giving that treatment to a modest service gate says something about how the work at Zorokuen Gate 1 was thought through. The plainest possible doors, sliding boards, sit next to a polished black wall within a span of 1.8 metres.

Seeing Gate 1

Zorokuen Gate 1 sits north of the main entrance, so it is seen after entering the grounds. Look to the north on the way from the front of the main house toward the entrance.

Being outdoors, the gate can be seen whenever the estate is open. Rules on photography vary from house to house, so it is worth checking. Opening hours and directions are on the Zorokuen estate page.