Hatakoshi Family Residence Front Gate

What the Hatakoshi Family Residence Front Gate Is

The Hatakoshi Family Residence Front Gate (波多腰家住宅表門, Hatakoshi-ke Jūtaku Omotemon) is a Showa-era timber kabukimon gate in the Hata district of Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, entered on the national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 28 April 2000 under the number 20-0043.

It stands at the entrance of a compound that faces west. Two gateposts are joined at the top by a tie beam, with no roof above. Braces set diagonally behind them hold the posts upright, and a fence runs off to each side. The opening is 4 metres wide.

The national register dates it only to the Showa era, which began in 1926, without giving a year.

The Way into the Compound

The Hatakoshi Family Residence Front Gate was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs opens its description of the gate by noting that the Hatakoshi served for generations as village headmen, and that the compound preserves the layout drawn on a house plan of 1931.

The gate itself is plain. A kabukimon is the most basic form of Japanese gate, just posts and a crossbeam, and it marks the edge of the property rather than making a show of it.

That restraint sharpens the view through it. Beyond the front gate, the main house turns its west gable toward the visitor, and the ash house stands just inside on the left. This is the point from which the whole layout of the compound begins to make sense.

What to Look For

Notice the braces behind the posts. A gate of posts and a crossbeam has to resist sideways forces such as wind with just two uprights, and the braces steady them from behind.

Look too at how the gate joins the fences on either side, so that gate and fence together make up the west face of the compound.

The south gate, near the east end of the south fence, is of the same kabukimon type. Using the same form for the main entrance and the everyday one gives the property a consistent character.

Visiting the Hatakoshi Family Residence Front Gate

The Hatakoshi Family Residence Front Gate stands on the west front of the compound and can be seen from outside the property. Beyond it is a private home, so do not pass through the gate. Photograph the gate itself and keep the household beyond it out of the frame.

Directions and viewing conditions for the whole compound are on the Hatakoshi Family Residence page.