Beppu City Asami Water Purification Plant Distribution Reservoir North Entrance

What Is the Beppu City Asami Water Purification Plant Distribution Reservoir North Entrance?

The Beppu City Asami Water Purification Plant Distribution Reservoir North Entrance (別府市朝見浄水場配水池北出入口, Haisuichi Kita Deiriguchi) is a reinforced concrete maintenance hut of 1926 at the Asami plant in Asami 2-chome, Beppu City, Oita Prefecture, registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on September 3, 1997. It gives access to the north side of the distribution reservoir, covers 13 square meters and carries registration number 44-0014.

The reservoir has two such entrances, one to the north and one to the south, and each was built as a free-standing hut separate from the basin itself.

Why It Was Registered

The Agency for Cultural Affairs picks out the North Entrance for its distinctive detailing on a very small building. The doorway is framed by pilasters set on square bases and topped with capitals the Agency calls unusual. Giving that much architectural dress to a shed that exists so staff can check the reservoir is what earned it attention. It was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property for contributing to the historic landscape of the country.

Here the sources agree. The Agency dates the hut to 1926, and Beppu's centennial waterworks history places both reservoir entrances in the First Expansion Project, begun in 1926 and completed in 1927.

What to Look For: Pilasters on Square Bases

A pilaster is a flat column that projects only slightly from a wall. It carries little or no load; its job is to lend a facade the dignity of a colonnade, and it was a staple of Western-style building in Japan. At the Asami North Entrance each pilaster rises from its own square plinth, so the columns look firmly planted rather than merely drawn on the wall.

Then look up to the capitals. The Agency calls them unusual and names no classical order, which suggests a freely adapted design rather than a copy of Doric, Ionic or Corinthian.

At 13 square meters the hut is roughly the size of a small bedroom. Fitting a full base, shaft and capital sequence onto something that modest says a good deal about the civic pride invested in Beppu's waterworks in the 1920s.

How to Visit

The Beppu City Asami Water Purification Plant Distribution Reservoir North Entrance stands inside a working plant with no regular visiting hours. If an open day gets you inside, stand in front of the doorway and read each pilaster from plinth to capital. Comparing it with the South Entrance shows two huts with the same job handled in quite different ways. Ask staff whether the interior can be entered and whether photography is allowed.