Mukai Family Residence Wall

What Is the Mukai Family Residence Wall?

The Mukai Family Residence Wall (向井家住宅塀, Mukai-ke Jūtaku Hei) is a tile-capped concrete wall along the south front of the Mukai estate in Kada, Wakayama City, Wakayama Prefecture; thought to date from the early Showa period, between 1926 and 1945, it became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 4 February 2021. It is 8.2 meters long.

The Mukai Family Residence Wall covers the western half of the street front, picking up where the western flanking wall of the front gate ends and running on along the old Awashima Kaidō road. Like the gate, it is classed in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database as a structure rather than a building, and the captions to its photographs there call it a dobei, an earthen wall.

Concrete Dressed as an Earthen Wall

Under the surface the Mukai Family Residence Wall is concrete, but every finish points toward a traditional wall. The footing is washed-finish mortar, Araidashi, with small pebbles exposed in the surface. Above it, the upper part of the wall is blackened with sumi ink, the lower part is faced with vertical boards, and a white band is painted between the two. Pan tiles cap the top.

From the road you read five horizontal layers: pebbled footing, boarded dado, white band, black wall and tile. Unless you know what is inside, from a few steps back it passes for a wall of earth.

On the garden side, buttresses brace the wall from within.

Matching the Gate

The flanking walls of the front gate are timber, yet the Mukai Family Residence Wall was built to the same design, so that two walls of different materials read as one continuous front running west from the gate.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs credits the wall with giving the old road a solid, weighty character. It was registered under number 30-0294 for its contribution to the historic landscape. Built in concrete yet finished to look like an old family's wall, it is the most intriguing of the four Mukai structures to study up close.

Visiting

The Mukai Family Residence Wall faces the old Awashima Kaidō, so it can be seen from the street. The pebbled footing and the black, white and boarded bands are easy to examine at close range from the road.

The back of the wall and its buttresses are inside the grounds and cannot be seen, though the Agency's database includes a photograph of the rear face. The land behind the wall is private, so please do not go in.