Katagiri Seiryudo Brick Wall

A 6.4-Metre Wall Between Garden and Work Space

Katagiri Seiryudo Brick Wall (片桐棲龍堂煉瓦塀, Katagiri Seiryūdō Renga-bei) is an early Meiji brick wall at the Katagiri Seiryudo kampo pharmacy in Nishiminatocho, Sakai Ward, Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture, entered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 18 October 2000. It is 6.4 metres long, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs classes it not as a building but as another kind of constructed work.

It runs along the south side of the Washing Area, starting at the south-west corner of the East Storehouse and heading almost due west. The Washing Area is a roofed space left open to the south; Katagiri Seiryudo Brick Wall closes that open side off from the garden. Sakai City describes it as a screen built to hide the washing area from the garden.

Bond, Courses and a Small Tiled Roof

The wall is one brick thick, meaning its depth equals the length of a single brick, and it is laid in English bond, alternating a course of bricks laid lengthwise with a course showing their ends. The method was widely used in Meiji Japan. Here it rises 22 courses.

At the top the bricks are corbelled out slightly, and a small double-pitched roof of Sangawara-buki pantiles sits on them. Putting a Japanese tiled roof on a brick wall protected the top of the brickwork from rain, and it also helped a new material settle in among the tiled roofs of the house and storehouses.

Sakai and Red Brick

Katagiri Seiryudo Brick Wall was registered as difficult to reproduce, under number 27-0112. The Agency's description pairs it with the brick floor of the Washing Area as fitting for Sakai, which is said to be one of the places where red brick making began in Japan.

The floor and the wall are the same early Meiji campaign: brick laid between two Kaei storehouses, and brick raised to close the south side. In a compound otherwise built of Edo timber and earth, Meiji red brick arrives in two forms, underfoot and as a wall, and marks clearly where one era's work meets the next.

Visiting

Katagiri Seiryudo Brick Wall stands between a closed garden and the Washing Area and cannot be approached. The compound is a private home and pharmacy; Sakai City asks visitors to view the buildings from outside only, and whether the wall can be seen from the lane has not been confirmed. Directions are on the Katagiri Seiryudo page.