Raku Family Residence Front Gate

Raku Family Residence Front Gate: A Quiet Face on Aburanokoji Street

The Raku Family Residence Front Gate (樂家住宅表門, Raku-ke jūtaku omotemon) is the timber gate of the Raku potters' home, facing Aburanokoji Street on the east side of the property in Kamigyo Ward, Kyoto; it is dated to the early Meiji period and was registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2007.

The gate is 4.5 metres wide. A pair of sliding lattice doors fills the centre, with a single sliding board door set behind them, and on either side rise earthen walls finished with wooden wainscoting. A gabled roof of pantiles covers the whole.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to the early Meiji period; the Raku Museum dates the rebuilding of the family house to 1855.

Why It Was Registered

The Raku Family Residence Front Gate was listed for its contribution to the historic landscape, and the Agency classes it as a structure other than a building.

When Kyoto City named the house a Landscape Important Building, one of its reasons was the street front itself: gate and high wall along the road, garden greenery showing above. This gate stands at the centre of that view.

What to Look For: Lattice, Earth and Wood

There is nothing grand about it: no heavy roof, no massive posts. The Raku Family Residence Front Gate is built of lattice and earth. From the street, the fine vertical bars of the sliding doors give the gate its face; the board door behind them closes off the view when needed.

The flanking walls carry wooden wainscoting at the base to protect the plaster from splashes and scuffs. To the north stands the waiting arbor, to the south the attendants' waiting room, each with a projecting lattice window onto the street, so the gate and its two small neighbours read as one continuous frontage.

Inside the gate are a lavatory and a hand-washing place, and a middle gate and fence lead on to the main house, guiding visitors inward.

Seeing the Front Gate

The Raku Family Residence Front Gate can be seen from Aburanokoji Street. Everything behind it is the family's private home and is not open.

Look at the even spacing of the lattice and at how the wainscoting on both sides lines up, then take in the waiting arbor and the attendants' room on either side. The street is narrow here, so choose a spot where you are not in the way of cars or bicycles, and remember that people live behind the gate. Directions are on the Raku Family Residence page.