Ito Family Residence Front Gate and Inner Fence

The Gate That Closes the Composition

The Ito Family Residence Front Gate and Inner Fence in Ushita, Gosen City, Niigata Prefecture, dates from the early Taisho era and was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 12 July 2005.

The gate opens to the south, northwest of the rice storehouse. It is 2.1 metres wide, roofed in Kirizuma-zukuri form with Sangawara-buki pantiles, and built as an udegimon, a bracket-arm gate. Arms project from the main posts to carry a purlin, and the roof sits on that. As gates go, it is at the plain end of the range.

The fence runs from the gate and divides the ground between the main house and the rice storehouse on a north-south line. It is 21 metres long, boarded vertically with narrow battens over the joints, and its tiled roof is carried on the same kind of projecting arms. Gate and fence use one structural idea, so they read as a single piece of work.

Registered as a Structure, Not a Building

The Agency for Cultural Affairs classes the Ito Family Residence Front Gate and Inner Fence as other structure rather than building. It is the only one of the six listed items not counted as a building. It is also the latest, dated to the early Taisho era, a span of 1912 to 1925 in western years.

The listing criterion is contribution to the historic landscape of the country. The Agency describes plain but careful work that forms a dignified estate frontage together with the surrounding buildings and garden. The storehouses came first, the house was settled next, and the gate and fence closed the outline at the end. The Ito Family Residence Front Gate and Inner Fence is that closing move.

Arms and Battens

The interest lies in the bracket arms. An udegimon carries its purlin on timbers thrust horizontally from the posts, holding a roof out over the opening without elaborate bracket sets. The fence supports its roof the same way, so moving the eye from gate to fence shows one technique repeated at a smaller scale.

The fence boards stand vertical, and thin battens are nailed over each joint. They keep wind and rain out of the gaps and hold the boards from cupping. With a roof above, the top edges stay comparatively dry. Nothing here is ornament, yet the rhythm of boards and battens gives the wall its face.

Visiting the Gate and Fence

Of everything on the estate, the Ito Family Residence Front Gate and Inner Fence is the easiest to approach. Visitors can stand square in front of the gate. They cannot pass through it: the ground beyond is private and lived in.

From that spot the fence runs east and the north wall of the rice storehouse continues beyond it, while the roof of the main house shows to the left. Keep photography to exterior shots from the public road, and do not aim through the gateway or at residents. The Lifelong Learning Division of the Gosen City Board of Education, on 0250-42-5195, can confirm current conditions.