Ohashi Saryo

A Tea House at Toranomon with Nine Registered Buildings

Ohashi Saryo stands at 5-6-6 Toranomon, Minato Ward, Tokyo, where 9 buildings were entered on the register of tangible cultural properties on 3 August 2006. They are registered properties rather than designated ones. All 9 are said to date from about 1949.

The 9 are the front gate, the Furo gate, the middle gate, the wall, and five tea rooms: Yamabuki, the Joan copy, Aoi, Katsura and Shubinan.

A tea house of this kind is a place furnished with buildings for the tea ceremony.

Three of Five Tea Rooms Copy Famous Originals

Most of the tea rooms are modelled on well-known tea rooms.

The Agency records the Joan copy as a small building of three and a half mats, made in imitation of the tea room Joan. The word copy in its name marks it as made after a model.

Aoi is said to imitate, in its alcove and elsewhere, a tea room of the Urasenke school in Kyoto; Katsura is said to be built in imitation of the design of the Katsura Imperial Villa, alcove included.

Only one carries copy in its name, yet Aoi and Katsura have models too. Three tea rooms each follow a different famous building.

Yamabuki is called a tea room of advanced craftsmanship and Shubinan a tea room of high quality; no model is recorded for them.

At the former Yamanaka main house, the brackets in the name hold its present name. Here a single word for copy in the name keeps the name of the model.

Three Gates, Differing in Roof and Width

There are three gates, each built differently.

The front gate stands on the east side, a ridged gate 2.7 metres wide, roofed in pantiles.

The Furo gate stands on the south side, a ridged gate 1.5 metres wide under a copper roof, with a diamond lattice on its face.

The middle gate stands in the central garden, a ridged gate 1 metre wide roofed in cedar bark held down with bamboo. As the gate for passing between the tea rooms, it binds them together, the record says.

The outward front gate is tiled, the southern gate copper-roofed, the garden gate barked. The widths narrow too: 2.7, 1.5 and 1.0 metres.

At the Akagi residence, a guard's hut stands by the front gate. Here the gates grow lighter and smaller as one moves from outside to the depth of the garden.

A Wall That Serves as the Outer Wall of Buildings

The wall round the grounds and the walls of buildings become one in places.

The Agency records the wall enclosing the south, east and the eastern half of the north side, timber and rendered in mortar, and says that where buildings meet it, it serves as their outer wall. It runs 53 metres.

Log posts stand on a base of Oya stone; on the east front the posts are shown, and on the south and north they are plastered over.

Shubinan is said to stand against the south side. Wall and tea room meet along the same edge.

At the Akagi residence, the west warehouse has no north wall of its own and uses the outer wall of the neighbouring rice store: buildings sharing a wall.

Here a boundary wall and buildings share one.

Visiting

The property is at 5-6-6 Toranomon, Minato Ward, Tokyo. All 9 carry the same address.

For all 9, the date field reads mid-Showa, about 1949. As at the Shigeta and Ogiwara residences, there is no spread in date.

The tea rooms cover 101 square metres (Aoi), 96 (Yamabuki), 49 (Katsura), 19 (Shubinan) and 14 (the Joan copy).

No owner is recorded, and opening and terms follow the owner's arrangements. Check before travelling.

Shubinan has a room of 6 mats with an alcove and a concealed Buddhist altar.