Okamoto Family Residence Front Gate

The Formal Entrance to a Samurai Compound

The Okamoto Family Residence Front Gate (岡本家住宅表門, Okamoto-ke Jūtaku Omotemon) is a late Edo-period timber Yakuimon gate at Mori in Ozu Town, Kikuchi District, Kumamoto Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 23 August 1999. It stands west of the main house on the western, formal side of the Okamoto compound and holds registration number 43-0030.

The gate is roofed in tile and has an opening 2.4 metres wide. Roofed wing walls, Sodobei, extend to either side, and plank fencing continues beyond them; both are included in the registration. To reach it from the western road you first cross a small stone bridge over the water channel that separates road and property, then face the gate head on.

A yakuimon carries a gabled roof on two main posts and two rear posts set behind them. The type was favoured for samurai residences and temples, and in a rural landscape it signalled rank as clearly as any heraldry.

How a Gate Makes a Statement

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the Okamoto Family Residence Front Gate as having the bearing of a samurai gate, and it names how that effect is achieved.

First, the gate is set back from the road rather than built on the boundary line, so there is a short, deliberate pause between the bridge and the threshold. Second, the wing walls carry their own small roofs. Third, the lower part of the wing walls is faced with boards. None of these is expensive. Together they turn a doorway into a frontage, and the frontage into a statement about who lives behind it.

The gate has been repaired in recent years, but the Agency notes that its principal members are well preserved. It was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape, as the centrepiece of the compound's western face.

Yakuimon or Shikyakumon?

Ozu Town's description of the Okamoto Family Residence refers to a Shikyakumon, a four-legged gate, at the front of the property. The Agency's registration record, however, classifies the front gate as a yakuimon.

The two are structurally different: a shikyakumon has supporting posts both in front of and behind its main posts, a yakuimon only behind them. This article follows the registration record; the national and municipal descriptions simply do not agree on this point.

Seeing the Front Gate

The whole face of the gate can be seen from the public road along the west side of the compound. It is the entrance to a private home, so passing through, opening it or crossing the stone bridge toward it is not possible.

The best position is on the far side of the road, square to the bridge. From there the set-back of the gate, the roofed wing walls and the long horizontal line of the plank fencing all come into view together. Photograph from the road only, and keep the lens off the house behind.