Matsumoto Sake Brewery Main Gate

A Temple Gate on a Brewer's Street

Matsumoto Sake Brewery Main Gate (松本酒造正門) is an early Edo-period shikyakumon gate (1615 to 1660) in Emisakecho, Fushimi Ward, Kyoto City, listed as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 8 July 2008. It faces east onto the street, is 2.8 metres wide, and is the oldest of Matsumoto's registered structures.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs records the tradition that the gate once stood at Shoden-in, a sub-temple of the Zen monastery Kennin-ji. It was moved once in the Meiji era and again, with alterations, around 1954, the years when the Matsumoto family built their house, Mangyoin, behind it. The gate and the house were registered on the same day.

Shoden-in was revived in his last years by Oda Urakusai, younger brother of Oda Nobunaga and one of the great tea men of his age. He spent his final years there absorbed in tea and died in 1621. In 1873 Shoden-in moved to the site of another sub-temple, Eigen-an, and later took the name Shoden-Eigenin, according to Kyoto City's travel guide. The gate's detailing dates to Urakusai's era, but no source confirms that it was built as part of his revival.

Zen Details at Close Range

The roof is gabled in heavy hongawara tile. A shikyakumon is a "four-legged gate": two main posts carrying the doors, braced front and back by four smaller posts. Here the posts stand on stone plinths called soban, and their tops and bottoms are rounded off in a shape known as chimaki. Both are hallmarks of the Zen style of building, which fits the story of a gate from a Rinzai Zen temple.

The posts carry three-bearing bracket sets, and between them sits a kaerumata, the frog-leg strut. At the gable ends a tie beam supports a vase-shaped strut in the manner called kōryō taiheizuka. The eaves are a single layer of widely spaced rafters.

The Agency notes that the gate has been altered, but the carved beam ends and other details go back to the start of the early modern period, and it praises the plant carving in particular. The gate was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape.

What to Look For

Start with the carving: the beam ends projecting from the posts and the kaerumata between them. The botanical ornament the Agency singles out is at head height when you stand in front of the gate. Look for where the deep early carving stops and later repair begins.

Then look down. Posts rising from stone plinths with rounded ends are not what you find on a farmhouse or townhouse gate. They mark this as a temple gate by birth. It is only 2.8 metres wide, but its details are of a much higher order than its size.

The gate faces east, so the front catches the morning sun. For the shadows in the carving, come before the light gets too high.

Visiting the Main Gate

The Main Gate stands on the street and can be seen from the public road. Behind it are Matsumoto's private grounds, which are not open; you cannot pass through.

Photograph from the road, and choose a spot that does not block traffic or passers-by. Mangyoin, beyond the gate, is also private; at most you will see part of its roof above the wall.