Painting the town red: The Akamon of the Kaga mansion and daimyō gateway architecture in Edo

Abstract

Built in 1827 to commemorate the marriage of the daimyō Maeda Nariyasu to a daughter of the shogun Tokugawa Ienari, the Akamon or ‘Red Gateway’ of the University of Tokyo, is generally claimed to be a unique gateway because of its distinctive colour and architectural style. This article uses an interdisciplinary methodology, drawing on architectural history, law and art history, to refute this view of the Akamon. It analyses and accounts for the architectural form of the gateway and its ancillary guard houses (bansho) by examining Tokugawa bakufu architectural regulations (oboegaki) and the depiction of daimyō gateways in doro-e and ukiyo-e. It concludes that there were close similarities between the Akamon and the gateways of high ranking daimyō in Edo. This similarity includes the red paint, which, it turns out, was not limited to shogunal bridal gateways but was in more general use by daimyō for their own gateways by the end of the Edo period. Indeed, the Akamon was called the ‘red gateway’ only from the 1880s after the many other red gateways had disappeared following the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate. The expression ‘to paint the town red’ refers not only to the way the Akamon celebrated the marriage of Yōhime, but also more broadly to characterize the way many of the other gateways at daimyō mansions in the central sectors of Edo had entrances that were decorated with bright red paint.