Oga Family Residence Front Gate

A gate facing the water

The Oga Family Residence Front Gate (大賀家住宅表門, Ōga-ke Jūtaku Omotemon) is a late Edo period gate at Imabō in Kita-ku, Okayama City, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on June 25, 2002. It is timber-framed and tiled, with a frontage of 4.1 metres, and stands east of the main house facing the canal.

The Oga family traded tatami facing mats directly with Edo, and 9 buildings on their property are on the national register. This is the only one classified as a structure rather than a building; the Agency for Cultural Affairs files it under other constructed works.

A gate is the face a household shows. Behind the Oga Family Residence Front Gate stand the main house, the detached reception room, the second-floor tatami room, the storehouses and the barns. For anyone arriving, this one small roof came first.

2 bays by one and a half

The gate measures 2 Ken along the ridge and one and a half across. A ken runs to roughly 1.8 metres, which puts the frontage at 4.1 metres and the depth at about 2.7 metres.

The doorway occupies only the front half-bay of that depth, leaving the rest as covered space inside the threshold. The doors themselves come in two layers: solid board panels and a latticed screen, both sliding apart from the centre. Close the boards and the street sees nothing. Leave the lattice alone and air and light pass while the opening stays controlled. One doorway, two settings.

Above sits an Irimoya-zukuri hipped-and-gabled roof in Hongawarabuki tiling of alternating round and flat units. That roof form carries rank in Japanese building, and here it repeats the shape of the main house at a fraction of the size.

Look up under the eaves

The carpentry worth stopping for is overhead.

Across the front and back, deep tie beams lock the frame at door-head level. The Japanese term for the depth of such a member is sei, and the sei here is generous, which is another way of saying the gate is braced hard from above.

On top of that comes degeta construction, where the purlin is carried out beyond the line of the posts on projecting brackets. Push the purlin out and the roof can follow it, so the eaves reach well past the frame and lay a band of shadow across the doorway. Shopfronts in merchant quarters used the technique constantly. On a gate it turns the whole thing towards the street with real force.

The Oga Family Residence Front Gate was listed under the criterion for structures contributing to the historic landscape of the country, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that its form suits the frontage of an estate of this standing.

Visiting the Oga Family Residence Front Gate

This gate serves as the entrance to a private home, so passing through it is not possible. The Okayama Prefectural Board of Education lists the property's public access as closed, and no dated opening has been announced.

Looking, though, is easier here than anywhere else on the property. The gate presents its front elevation to the canal lane, which puts the eaves, the tie beams and the sliding doors all within view from public ground. Carry on to the sundries store and mortar shed adjoining to the south and the whole frontage resolves.

Please do not work a lens into the gap between the doors or push equipment past the threshold. Someone comes through here every day.

Buses leave the east exit of JR Okayama Station and take roughly 23 minutes to Polytech Center Okayama-mae; from the stop it is 8 minutes on foot. By rail the nearest station is Niwase on the JR Sanyo Line, 2.6 kilometres away, which is 35 minutes walking or 7 by taxi. No parking is provided.