Ichiki Ryokan Entrance Building

The Hinge of the Compound

Ichiki Ryokan Entrance Building (一木旅館玄関棟, Ichiki Ryokan Genkantō) is the single-storey timber entrance hall that receives guests at Ichiki Ryokan in Kami, Shimotsu-cho, Kainan City, Wakayama Prefecture; built around 1937 and remodeled around 1955, it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on June 29, 2022.

A stone-paved path leads from the gate on the pilgrims' road across a front garden, and Ichiki Ryokan Entrance Building stands at the end of it. Its simple two-sided ryōsage-zukuri roof is laid in sangawara-buki tile, and it covers 52 square metres. It is the smallest of the five registered structures, but in plan it is the one everything else depends on.

An Entrance Built to Connect

Beyond the front door, Ichiki Ryokan Entrance Building is mostly corridor. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, it contains the east-west passage joining the Main Building and the Old Building, the covered bridge north to the New Building, and the washrooms. Every route to the three guest buildings, east, west and north, runs through it.

When the New Building went up and the Old Building was moved in around 1937, the inn outgrew what the old town house could handle on its own. The Entrance Building reads as the piece built to organize that expansion. The Agency's database holds photographs of its west-facing front and of the view toward the Main Building.

The Agency describes its design as refined inside and out. For a small connecting structure, it was clearly treated as the face of the inn. The registration criterion is contribution to the historic landscape of the country.

Black Stones Underfoot

Start by looking down. The earthen floor of the entry is scattered with Nachiguro, the glossy black stone of the Kumano region that is also cut into black Go stones.

The same stone is pressed into the ground beneath the gate. From the moment guests step off the road to the moment they reach the front step of Ichiki Ryokan Entrance Building, the same black stones lead them in, a detail that ties the gate and the entrance together as parts of the same 1937 plan.

Standing at the step, notice the directions the corridors take. East leads to the late Edo Main Building, west to the late Meiji Old Building, and north across the bridge to the early Shōwa New Building. Three eras of Ichiki Ryokan branch out from this one small hall.

Seeing Ichiki Ryokan Entrance Building

Ichiki Ryokan Entrance Building sits inside the gate at the far side of the front garden and is hardly visible from the road. Its exterior and entry floor can be seen when you dine at Ichiki Ryokan, which now operates as a restaurant.

Every diner passes through its door, which makes it the one registered structure you are certain to see on a visit. Check with the staff before taking photographs indoors.