Kikusuiro Garden Gate

A Smaller Temple Gate Beside the Main Building Entrance

The Kikusuiro Garden Gate (菊水楼庭門, Kikusuirō Niwamon) is a wooden Yakuimon gate beside the entrance of the Main Building at the Kikusuiro ryotei in Takabatake-cho, Nara City, Nara Prefecture, an Edo-period gate said to have been moved here in the Meiji era, and it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on December 4, 2000. It is 1.9 meters wide and roofed with interlocking pan tiles (Sangawara-buki).

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the Kikusuiro Garden Gate is set in the wall that separates the entrance area of the Main Building from the garden on the north side of the Former Main Building. Like the Front Gate, it is said to have stood at a Tatchū sub-temple of Enjoji (圓成寺) before being moved here in the Meiji era, and the database dates it the same way: Edo period, moved in the Meiji period.

Why the Garden Gate Was Registered

The Kikusuiro Garden Gate carries registration number 29-0033 and was listed under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the country. The agency notes that it shares the yakuimon form of the Front Gate but is somewhat smaller and roofed with pan tiles, and it judges the gate a fitting part of an old and established dining inn.

If the Front Gate is the public face of Kikusuiro, the Kikusuiro Garden Gate works on the inside of the grounds, marking the line between building and garden. In the database both gates are classed under religion as "other structures," set apart from the Former Main Building and the Main Building, which are classed as tertiary-industry buildings.

What to Look For in the Garden Gate

The Kikusuiro Garden Gate is best appreciated side by side with the Front Gate. It is 1.9 meters wide against the Front Gate's 2.4 meters, and where the Front Gate is roofed in heavy round-and-flat Hongawarabuki tiling, the Garden Gate uses pan tiles, each combining the flat and the rounded tile in a single piece. Two gates said to have come from the same temple differ plainly in size and roofing.

The agency's commentary leaves one question open: did the Kikusuiro Garden Gate already have pan tiles before it was moved, or was it reroofed here? Its frame is the same as the Front Gate's: main posts carrying the doors, with rear Hikaebashira posts standing behind them.

Notice where it stands, too. The Kikusuiro Garden Gate sits right beside the Main Building entrance, with the garden of the Former Main Building beyond the wall, so anyone walking up to that entrance passes it on the way in.

Visiting the Kikusuiro Garden Gate

The Kikusuiro Garden Gate stands inside the grounds beside the Main Building entrance, so only restaurant, banquet and wedding guests can see it up close. The ryotei takes reservations only; book a meal and look for the gate as you approach the entrance.

When you book, ask if you may pass through the Kikusuiro Garden Gate into the garden and if you may photograph the gate and garden. Directions and restaurant hours are on the Kikusuiro page.