Arakaki Family Residence Hinpun

A Stone Screen Between the Road and the House

Arakaki Family Residence Hinpun (新垣家住宅ヒンプン, Arakaki-ke Jūtaku Hinpun) is a freestanding limestone screen wall built around 1896 at a homestead in Shuri Sueyoshi, Naha City, Okinawa, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 31 July 2007. It runs 3.6 metres east to west and is 60 centimetres thick and 1.7 metres high.

A hinpun is the screen that traditional Okinawan homes place between the gateway and the main house. This one stands on the south side of the main house, between it and the road, so that anyone at the entrance cannot see straight into the home.

It also sets the route in. To reach the house you have to step around the Arakaki Family Residence Hinpun, one side or the other.

How It Is Built

The material is Ryukyu limestone, laid as Ranzumi (random coursing) and then dressed so that the faces are smooth. The result is a slab-like wall with a trapezoidal cross-section, thicker at the base and narrowing toward the top. From the front it reads as a single stone panel; from the side you can see the slight lean of the faces.

Directly in front of the hinpun is the opening in the boundary wall. The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that this stretch of the wall, the part that leads to the hinpun, is dressed with particular precision. Screen and entrance were evidently treated as a pair: the formal face of the house.

Why It Was Registered

It was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency's description points to its role as a screen for the main entrance and to the distinctly Okinawan character it gives the yard.

Some households made their hinpun from hedging or planting. This one is stone, and carefully dressed stone at that. Like the wall, the furu and the ponds, it is dated to around 1896, part of a homestead finished throughout in the same limestone.

What to Notice and Visiting

Look at the profile. The trapezoidal section tapers up from its 60 centimetre base, which is what keeps a wall 1.7 metres high so steady. Compare the dressing of its faces with the finish on the wall opening beside it and you can see how much care went into the front of the house.

The Arakaki Family Residence Hinpun stands inside the grounds of a private home and is not open to the public. Of the six registered items it is one of the likeliest to be seen from the road, since it stands between the house and the street, but we have not confirmed how much is visible. Stay off the property, and keep residents and the inside of the grounds out of any photographs.