A gate in a garden for tea house

This small is in a garden for tea house, is made of wood and bamboo and is installed on the small path following toward the tea house.

Tea houses, in general, are located on the most remote part of tea gardens and are very hard to find from outside the garden. This is why a host and guests of tea ceremony hold on the tiny house would like to do the ceremony peacefully, far from the daily life.

Now, the gate has, roughly speaking, three purposes.

The first purpose is, as the same as other gates, to keep people except hosts and guests away from the garden. Exactly speaking, they will easily be able to break the gate enter the garden over it. This gate softly and modestly rejects them to enter inside, just like a stone for keeping away, Sekimori-ishi.

The second one is to make people feel further from there to the small house than it really is. The division by the gate make people feel further to the house. Making them feel further slightly helps the house feeling like being in the tranquility outside the town.

The third is to change the remote space into a sacred space by fencing off. In terms of Japanese garden and architecture, going inward means reaching the sacred space in a sense. Much the same is true on the tea house and tea garden. Guests need to pass through some gates and openings to go to the tea house. They, at first, need to pass through the gate at the entrance of the site. After passing through it, they are to follow the tiny path in the garden. Some going-ahead after, they need to go through another gate like this again. Then, they are to reach the house. They have to pass through the tiny opening of the entrance to the inside of the house.

In this way, the gate has several meanings and divide the garden softly and modestly.