Nakahara Family Residence Brick Wall

Fifty-One Meters of Brick on the Southern Boundary

The Nakahara Family Residence Brick Wall (中原家住宅煉瓦塀, Nakahara-ke Jūtaku Renga-bei) is an early Taishō-period brick wall marking the southern boundary of the Nakahara estate in Akatsuka, Nishi-ku, Niigata City, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on May 10, 2018.

It runs 51 meters. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, family tradition holds that it went up after the great fire of 1909, when the Nakahara extended their grounds to the south. The agency dates it to the early Taishō period, 1912 to 1918; the preservation society's guide map gives 1919 for both the brick wall and the annex. Either way, the new boundary was secured a few years after the fire.

Square brick piers, three shaku (just under a meter) on a side, stand at each end, and between them runs a thick wall shaped into 10 arches. The brickwork is laid in English bond.

Why It Was Registered

The Nakahara Brick Wall was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The agency praises the care of its English bond and notes that it served both as a firebreak and as a backdrop for the garden.

Building a boundary in brick rather than timber and plaster, so soon after a major fire, makes its purpose plain. The estate's front and rear walls, facing the road and the north, are timber and plaster; only the south side, shared with a neighbor, is brick.

Yet the wall is not a blank firebreak. Dividing it into 10 arches was a choice made for the eye. The wall closes the south end of the garden and forms the backdrop seen from the reception rooms, so it was built to be looked at as well as to stop flames.

What to Look For

Up close, check the bond. English bond alternates a course of stretchers, bricks laid lengthwise, with a course of headers, bricks laid end-on, so the wall reads as horizontal bands of long and short faces. You can count them course by course.

Then step back to take in the whole of the Nakahara Brick Wall: 10 evenly spaced arches between two heavy piers, setting up a rhythm of shadow across the red face. Low afternoon light from the west gives the arches their deepest relief.

Visiting the Brick Wall

The Nakahara Brick Wall lies along the property line to the south and is hard to see from any road. On the spring and autumn open days it can be viewed from the garden inside the grounds. Because it borders a neighboring lot, keep to the areas staff indicate.

Dates and directions are on the Nakahara Family Residence page.