Shibaguchi Gate

• Erected: 1710s
• Japanese: 芝口御門 (Shibaguchi gomon)

The Shibaguchi Gate was a large and ornate gate constructed in the Shiba neighborhood of Edo in the 1710s at the suggestion of shogunal advisor Arai Hakuseki. It was later lost in a fire and was never rebuilt.

The gate's construction was accompanied by the reconstruction of the Naka-no-gomon, the chief southern gate into the Honmaru (central bailey) of Edo castle. Hakuseki believed that in accordance with Confucian philosophy and Chinese practice, the shogunal city and castle should have particularly impressive gates leading towards and into the castle from the south.

After Hakuseki fell from power around 1716, however, the governing philosophy of the shogunate returned to that of the Hayashi clan, and numerous changes that Hakuseki made to shogunal ritual and ceremony were reversed. The Naka-no-gomon was torn down, and when the Shibaguchi Gate was later lost in a fire, no efforts were made to rebuild it.

References

• Watanabe Hiroshi, A History of Japanese Political Thought, 1600-1901, International House of Japan (2012), 148.
• Watanabe Hiroshi 渡辺浩, “’Rei’ ‘Gobui’ ‘Miyabi’ – Tokugawa Seiken no girei to jugaku” 「『礼』『御武威』『雅び』－徳川政権の儀礼と儒学－」, in Kokusai kenkyû shûkai hôkokusho 国際研究集会報告書 vol 22, "Kuge to buke - sono hikaku bunmeishi-teki kenkyû" 公家と武家――その比較文明史的研究――, Kokusai Nihon Bunka Kenkyû Center 国際日本文化研究センター (2004), 171-172.