Izumi City Kuboso Memorial Museum of Art Teahouse Nakakuguri Gate

A wall you duck through

The Izumi City Kuboso Memorial Museum of Art Teahouse Nakakuguri Gate (中潜, Nakakuguri) is a garden gate built in 1937 in the garden of the Kuboso Memorial Museum of Art in Uchida-cho, Izumi, Osaka Prefecture, and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2006.

A nakakuguri is a gate made by opening a small doorway in a wall that divides a tea garden; guests stoop to pass through. This one stands north of the Outer Waiting Arbor, facing south, and forms part of the outer Roji leading to Chosentei.

It runs 2.7 m long and looks more like a short roofed wall than a gate. The copper-sheet gable roof rests on projecting brackets over bamboo rafters. The east end has a low doorway with a sliding door; the west end has a Shitaji-mado lath window braced with a bamboo strut.

Why it was registered

The Izumi City Kuboso Memorial Museum of Art Teahouse Nakakuguri Gate was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, it copies the nakakuguri at Zangetsu-tei in the Omotesenke compound and shapes the space of the outer garden.

The agency's description of the tea garden goes further, saying the position and design of the outer waiting bench and this gate match the space in front of Zangetsu-tei. What was copied is a device that paces a guest's walk through the garden, reproduced in both form and placement.

What to look for

Compare the two ends of the wall. The sliding doorway on the east is the way through; the lath window on the west lets you glimpse the other side without passing. One short wall does two jobs.

Look up under the eaves, where the brackets carry a row of bamboo rafters beneath the thin copper roof. Osaka Bunkazai Navi notes that the wall is finished in jurakukabe, a traditional earthen plaster.

Visiting

The gate stands inside Chosentei's outer roji. How close you can get during the Sunday Chosentei opening depends on the arrangements that day; the museum notes that some areas are closed for conservation.

Follow staff directions before ducking through the doorway. Photography of the tea buildings is allowed, but tripods and selfie sticks are not.