Concealed within the margins of Western Tokyo, two narrow streets trace the perimeter of a small chōme block in a suburban neighbourhood. At the corner where the paths converge, a broad two-storey home stands prominently, drawing my attention as I approach from the north. As the building's side elevation comes into view, its architectural features become apparent—the gently sloping, multi-layered tiled roof hints at tradition. A piled stone wall at the base adds a sense of solidity, with a roughly cut stone step at the entrance subtly suggesting wabi-sabi aesthetics. The exterior is painted a warm, natural beige, harmonising with Japanese black pines and cedar trees, carefully trained for the domestic garden. A weathered bamboo lattice fence encloses the scene, which seems to exist in a slower passage of time. My first impression is of a kominka (古民家), a private dwelling that has stood for many years.
As I turn the corner, however, a transformation unfolds. The house reveals a modern façade with contemporary features—large windows open the space, inviting more light inside. The garden, which seemed meticulously pruned from the side, now adopts a wilder character, with a more relaxed and natural growth punctuated by potted plants. The front of the house retains the outline of a kominka with its wooden beams, veranda, and eaves, yet it carries the look of panel-based prefabrication.
During the post-war period, traditional Japanese architecture experienced a revival as a counterpoint to earlier Western influences, while modern features and conveniences were simultaneously being integrated into daily life. Considering all this, the home was likely built in the 1960s. This type of mid-Shōwa Era (1926–1989) residence became common in the suburban landscape during Japan's post-war high-growth period. The building itself is not particularly unusual, but what truly caught my attention was the gate on the side elevation.
I had recently visited Kagerou Bunko, a second-hand bookshop in Kanda Jinbōchō, the district in Chiyoda-ku that serves as the centre of Tokyo's used bookshops and publishing houses. Kagerou Bunko specialises in rare illustrated books and prints and is part of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers. Within the shop's limited quarters, where the air hung heavy with the aroma of old books, I browsed its extensive collection. In the corner of my mind, my dwindling suitcase space and shrinking luggage allowance for the flight home forced me to exercise restraint and keep purchases to a minimum. Resisting the allure of hefty ukiyo-e and photography tomes, I eventually selected a slim Kiku-ban B6-sized book. It is an attractive size, well-suited for easy handling and reading, yet slightly larger than the international B6, allowing for more creative freedom in design. The name itself is equally appealing, with "Kiku" (菊) meaning chrysanthemum and "Ban" (判) meaning size.
The Chrysanthemum-sized book I selected was an antique 1966 edition of Mon to Zentei (門と前庭), subtitled Gateway & Front Yard in English—a record of gate design trends from around 1960. Featuring 65 examples from Japan's neighbourhoods, it illustrates how the front yard is shaped by the gate, documenting materials, architectural forms, and landscaping practices, including the arrangement of stones, pathways, and plants. The book contains four chapters covering residential, restaurant & hotel, tea house, and foreign styles. Further inspection revealed that it is part of an extensive series by the publisher Shokokusha. Tantalisingly, there are similar compilations on such topics as Wall & Fence, Pond & Spring, and Fusuma & Shoji. The series even includes a subcategory of gate-themed books, such as Japanese Gates, Western Gates, and Temple Gates. However, Gateway & Front Yard’s focus on eclectic mid-century gates makes it an ideal companion for roaming the suburbs.
The gate of the hybrid mid-Shōwa corner home closely resembles № 6, "Roof-trussed gate thatched with small tiles and cypress bark" from the residential chapter. The pictured entrance has a traditional hurdle door featuring a latticed framework. A roofed gate like this stands out as relatively exuberant within the context of the average neighbourhood. In Tokyo: A Spatial Anthology, urban historian Jinnai Hidenobu argues that two modes of living characterised Edo: the common people, who focused on "establishing a shop," and the warrior class, who sought to "establish a grand residence." During the Edo Period (1603–1868), the row houses of feudal retainers, along with the gates to their compounds, formed a continuous wall along the streets surrounding their estates. This enclosed design projected an aura of imposing power to the outside world.
Although these row houses and compound gates were dismantled with the onset of the Meiji Era (1869–1912), the aspirations they represented persisted into the future. Walking in an affluent Tokyo ward like Minato-ku reveals a variety of impressively gated homes in different styles as you ascend into its residential streets. A shift has occurred from Jinnai's dichotomy of establishing either a shop or a grand residence. Business magnates likely own these opulent homes—here, the successfully established shop now funds the grand residence. A website called Shacho no Ie (社長の家), or President's House, was created specifically to track and showcase the residences of Japan's top executives via Google Maps. For instance, you can freely view the home of the late Toyota President Eiji Toyoda—the complex includes several elaborate structures, enclosed by a high wall and secured by a stern gate. This setup echoes Jinnai's description of warriors' compound residences, which strictly barred the general populace from entry, creating a fortified private space.
The gate can also serve as a symbol of power with more sinister connotations. I saw a TV news report about Tanaka Yukio, a high-ranking member of the Kudo-kai yakuza group, who had recently been arrested for his role in the 2013 assassination of Ohigashi Takayuki, the 72-year-old president of Ohsho Food Service, the company behind the Gyoza no Ohsho restaurant chain. As Tanaka was taken into custody, the broadcast showed him being arrested at his home, stepping out through an exquisite gate—a combination of an ornate steel door flanked by two grand ōya (大谷) stone gate posts, as seen in Gateway & Front Yard's residential entry № 16. It's a gate that befits a powerful individual, embodying grandeur and menace equally.
Extravagant gates are rare in most of Tokyo's humdrum neighbourhoods. However, you'll commonly see several more modest examples from the foreign style chapter of Gateway & Front Yard. For instance, № 3, "Gate with a terrace-like garage in front", features an ungated entrance with a weather-protective canopy for vehicles, creating a gate-like space. The book's editor notes that "western-style" gates can be freely designed with car parking in mind, reflecting the 1960s when automobiles were becoming accessible to the general population. Although car ownership was becoming practical and desirable, the classification of the terrace-like garage as foreign suggests that cars were still viewed as a Western import.
Common further still is the shinchoku monpi (伸縮門扉), a semi-permanent, telescopic gate structure. This design suits Tokyo's densely populated urban districts, where space is scarce—a flexible solution for controlling access to driveways without permanently occupying space. It isn't featured in Gateway & Front Yard, having only become popular later, once automobiles were more firmly rooted in society. This type of gate may be unattractive, but it is affordable and functional. Homeowners willingly affix a brown metal shinchoku monpi to the front of an otherwise delicately appointed home to reap the benefits of a gate without the expense.
№ 18, "Gate with steel door" is another regular feature in the streetscape, with a latticed steel door framed and supported by two sturdy stone posts—far less regal than Tanaka Yukio's—that connect to a perimeter wall. At times, the posts, and even the wall itself, are topped with a shallow 'hat' resembling the upper portion of a lantern, known as the kasa (傘), meaning umbrella. It can be difficult to accept these configurations as part of the foreign style chapter. They represent another instance of something that seemed foreign in the 1960s but has since been wholly integrated into Japanese residential architecture.
Suppose a property is fortunate enough to be endowed with stone posts or posts made from other materials. In that case, this is likely where the household's hyōsatsu (表札), or nameplate, will be displayed. Nameplates exist, but they are seldom seen in my home city of London, where privacy concerns outweigh any associated benefits. Japan's tradition of displaying a hyōsatsu is relatively recent, emerging alongside the introduction of the Koseki (戸籍) family register system in the Meiji Era, which mandated that every citizen have a surname. Before this, most ordinary people did not have surnames and lived in close-knit communities where neighbours knew each other well enough to make nameplates unnecessary. To find out where Old Kōtarō lived, you simply needed to ask around.
The 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake marked another turning point, displacing many people and making hyōsatsu essential for indicating where families had relocated. Additionally, hyōsatsu became crucial for the postal system, which vowed to deliver to the individual named on the envelope, not just to an address. I spent a period living in a home where my name was not displayed outside, and, as a result, deliveries bearing my name would simply not arrive. Eventually, the family added me beneath their metal hyōsatsu with makeshift laminated paper. Initially, hyōsatsu were wooden, but they evolved during the post-war period. Stone, ceramic, and composite nameplates became popular, with the kanji characters of the family name engraved or embossed in various typefaces. Stylised nameplates came to symbolise a growing interest in personalising the entrance of one's home.
The practice of purchasing used homes in Japan has increased in recent years. However, the typical path for single-family homeowners is still to design and build their own house, resulting in distinct appearances for homes even within the same chōme block. Some opt for a completely custom design, while others build their homes from the swatch books of prefab brands like Hebel Haus. When I first arrived in Tokyo, I travelled everywhere by bicycle, covering long distances across the city or to the urban fringe. I would cycle through neighbourhoods to avoid the congested main roads. At that time, Google Maps navigation was still in beta, and the average keitai mobile phone was not GPS-enabled, so I occasionally lost my bearings in the maze of narrow streets. These journeys awakened me to the diversity of the city's residential architecture. I initially appreciated it on a romantic level, which soon led to an interest in the purpose and meaning of each component. For me, the intangible emotional resonance of a place, its factual details, and their semiotics are equally important to a balanced experience. Studying the particulars is not just an intellectual exercise—it enables me to commune with my emotional response, bridging knowledge and feeling.
Through its eclectic collection of gates, Gateway & Front Yard illustrates how harmonising design elements between the gate and the front garden can achieve aesthetic beauty while addressing practical needs like privacy, security, and boundary marking. Even in smaller homes, strategic landscaping—the winding placement of a few stepping stones, the concentric raking of gravel, or the careful arrangement of small plants near the gate—can enhance the entrance's prestige. Gates, whether mighty or humble, enclose curated spaces within the diverse and occasionally chaotic low-rise Tokyo neighbourhood. Within the 58-year-old pages of this second-hand bookshop-scented monograph, we uncover new perspectives on the Japanese suburbs and their hybrid mid-Shōwa residences through the act of gate spotting. I think of the wealth of knowledge still lying dormant on the shelves of shops like Kagerou Bunko and feel the pull to keep exploring.
Until we meet in the suburbs,
AJ