Front Gate and Brick Wall of the Niigata University School of Medicine (former Niigata Medical College)

The Akamon and a Wall That Climbs

The front gate and brick wall of the Niigata University School of Medicine (新潟大学医学部（旧新潟医学専門学校）表門及び煉瓦塀), running along the northern edge of the Asahimachi campus in Chuo Ward, Niigata City, Niigata Prefecture, were built in 1911 and 1914 respectively and were entered on the national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 10 November 2005, with notification on 5 December.

Students call the gate the Akamon, the Red Gate. It appears under that name on the campus map, and the medical faculty's own prospectus notes that people frequently use it as a backdrop for commemorative photographs. Graduation day here produces a queue.

Both elements belong to the Niigata Medical College, an imperially chartered institution founded in 1910. The college became Niigata Medical University in 1922, one of the six older imperial medical universities alongside Chiba, Kanazawa, Okayama, Nagasaki and Kumamoto, and was folded into the newly created Niigata University in 1949. The medical faculty has occupied this same ground at Asahimachi-dori 1-no-cho since the college's founding, which makes the wall and gate the longest continuous physical presence on the campus.

The wall came first, in 1911, the year after the college opened. The gate followed in 1914.

What Registration Protects, and What It Does Not

The gate is not standing where it was built. In 1982 it was relocated within the campus. The Agency for Cultural Affairs records the move plainly and adds that the original form was preserved through it.

That combination raises a question worth answering, because it explains what the register actually does. Designation as an Important Cultural Property attaches heavily to the original site; moving such a building requires ministerial permission and is rare. Registration is more pragmatic. The register was created in 1996 to protect the vast stock of modern buildings falling out of use, and it accepts structures that have been moved, provided the form survives the move. Two brick piers 2.7 metres high, taken down and rebuilt to the same design a short distance away, remain the same cultural property in the eyes of the register.

A note on terminology. Japanese everyday usage, including some official-looking material, often says shitei (designated) when the correct term is toroku (registered). The medical faculty's own prospectus does exactly this. The two words describe different legal instruments with different obligations, and English writing on Japanese heritage tends to inherit the confusion. This gate and wall are registered.

Registration number 15-0188, accepted under the criterion covering structures that contribute to the historic landscape of the country. The neighbouring museum building, the former Niigata Normal School Memorial Hall, was registered on exactly the same day under number 15-0187, though under the stricter criterion for design quality.

Two Materials, and a Staircase Without Steps

The gate piers are built in mixed courses of brick and white granite. Bands of pale stone interrupt the red brick at intervals, a technique that shows up across Meiji and Taisho public architecture and that reads at a distance as horizontal striping. The effect on a small structure like a gate pier is to make it look taller and more deliberate than its 2.7 metres would otherwise suggest. Get close and the granite's crystalline surface is obvious against the fired clay beside it.

The wall is the more remarkable of the two, and it is easy to walk past.

It runs 149 metres. Asahimachi and the adjoining Nishi-Ohata district sit on ground that was developed over coastal sand dunes, so the land tilts. Rather than following the slope with a sloping cap, the builders stepped the wall: each section holds its top horizontal, then drops to the next level, so the coping descends in a series of flat treads. A staircase without steps, if you like, or a staircase for nobody.

The reason is structural as much as visual. Brickwork wants horizontal beds. Laying courses on a rake introduces shear along every joint, and stepping the wall keeps every course flat while still following the terrain. What looks like an aesthetic decision is a bricklayer's solution to a real problem.

Walk the full length and the rhythm of the drops becomes a record of the gradient. This is the most direct reading of Niigata's dune topography available anywhere in the city centre.

Visiting

The wall faces a public street along the northern boundary of the campus and can be seen and photographed at any hour, at no charge. There is no ticket and no visitor centre because none is needed.

The Asahimachi campus is a working teaching hospital and medical school. Passing through the gate on foot along public routes is normal, but the campus is not a sightseeing destination, and the university hospital's patient areas are private. Photograph the gate and wall from outside, and keep clear of hospital entrances.

Getting there: JR Hakusan Station on the Echigo Line is about a ten-minute walk, or take a Niigata Kotsu bus from Niigata Station to Shiyakusho-mae, three minutes on foot. For the northern side of the campus where the wall runs, the Higashi-Nakadori stop is closer. A taxi from Niigata Station takes about ten minutes.

The Niigata University Asahimachi Academic Collections Museum, registered on the same day and open free of charge from 10:00 to 12:00 and 13:00 to 16:30, closed Sundays and Mondays, stands on the next block at Asahimachi-dori 2-no-cho. The two make a natural pair, and seeing them together shows the difference between the register's two criteria more clearly than any explanation. The Niitsu Memorial Hall of 1938 is also within walking distance.

These prewar structures survive because Niigata City appeared on the American shortlist of atomic bomb targets, and target cities were held back from the incendiary raids that destroyed most Japanese urban centres in 1945. Nagaoka, sixty kilometres south, was not on that list and lost its centre on 1 August 1945.