Omi Shrine Outer Lattice Wall (northern Part)

Four Bays, and the Line Where Two Campaigns Meet

Omi Jingu Sotosukibei, North Section (近江神宮外透塀（北部）, also written Ōmi Jingū Sotosukibei Hokubu), a roofed slatted fence at Omi Jingu in Otsu, Shiga Prefecture, was built in 1944 and joined the national register of Tangible Cultural Properties in 1998.

It attaches to the north gate and runs four bays towards the kagura hall corridor. With the south section on the other side of the gate it closes the east side of the northern part of the outer court. Length 8 metres, copper roof, specification identical to its southern counterpart.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs record attaches a wider observation to this entry than to most, and it is the reason this short stretch of fence repays attention.

Vermilion Against Plain Timber

The record notes that this fence belongs to the second construction campaign, and that it was finished, along with the tower gate and the outer colonnade, in vermilion lacquer and white plaster. It then makes the point directly: this treatment stands in contrast to the plain unpainted timber of the sanctuary group built in the first campaign.

That contrast is the organising idea of the whole precinct, and it is easiest to grasp on foot. Everything a visitor meets on the way in, from the gate to the colonnades to these fences, is painted. Everything at the top, the sanctuary and the enclosures around it, is bare wood.

Painted surfaces read as public and worldly, unpainted timber as archaic and withdrawn. Japanese shrine architecture has used the distinction for centuries, but it usually separates one shrine from another rather than one part of a single precinct from the rest. Here the boundary runs through the middle of a complex built within four years, and crossing it is something the visitor does with their feet.

Registration came on 9 October 1998 under number 25-0075, with the criterion that it serves as a model of design. Omi Jingu was founded in 1940 to enshrine Emperor Tenji, and the complex was planned within the Home Ministry's Shrine Bureau by Sunami Takashi and Tani Shigeo.

What to Look For

Walk uphill from the tower gate towards the sanctuary and watch for the moment the colour stops. That transition is what this fence documents, and it is more legible in the flesh than in any photograph.

Compare the four bays here with the five on the south side of the gate. The fences are otherwise the same, and the difference in length simply follows the ground each had to cover.

Look at the treatment where the fence meets the north gate. The gate is a piece of architecture and the fence is a boundary, and the junction has to reconcile them without either losing its character.

The fence is outdoors on accessible ground and can be seen and photographed without restriction while the grounds are open, 6:00 to 18:00, at no charge. Omi-jingu-mae station on the Keihan Ishiyama-Sakamoto line is a nine-minute walk, and drivers have 200 free spaces outside the New Year period.