Sentō Samaritans: The fight to save urban bathhouses

Dozens of elderly regulars, families with children and young Tokyoites from all over the city strip, shower off and soak.

This was the scene during a scorching weekend in July at Inari-yu, a rejuvenated sentō (public bathhouse) in Kita Ward’s Takinogawa neighborhood. Together in baths ranging from warm to very hot, bathers admired the bright blues and greens of a recently repainted mural of Mount Fuji over their heads.

Built in 1930, Inari-yu is a rare surviving example of the shrine-like miyazukuri architectural style typical of Tokyo’s prewar bathhouses. The main attraction for visitors, though, was the reopening of the century-old nagaya, a type of Edo Period (1603-1867) rowhouse, adjacent to the sentō. Inari-yu’s staff originally lived in this building, but it had been abandoned for decades — until three years ago, when Sento & Neighborhood, a nonprofit that aims to revive historic bathhouses, started working with Inari-yu’s fifth-generation owners to restore the nagaya.

At the inaugural event, Sento & Neighborhood organized activities such as a lecture by an architectural historian, a community breakfast and a neighborhood walking tour. Next to Inari-yu’s entrance, a market with local food vendors added to the colorful and festive atmosphere.

Unmissable for the attendees, of course, was also a visit to the bathhouse. Stepping out of the heat and into Inari-yu’s cool, soothing interior, bathers shed their clothes and their fatigue in the spacious changing rooms with simple wooden decor overlooking a small, outdoor koi pond.

“Bathhouses are a space where I can ground myself,” says Sam Holden, who first found solace in sentō when he was a graduate student in Tokyo.

Holden, who labels himself an urban activist, is a writer, translator and renovation specialist. He founded Sento & Neighborhood together with four associates in 2020 with the idea of “changing historic bathhouses as little as possible but finding a way for them to become sustainable,” Holden explains, hinting at the financial difficulties that many sentō face.

Down the drain?

To many, Japan’s cities conjure up images of bustling train stations, colorful neon lights and tight alleyways of izakaya (Japanese pubs) filled with the sound of drunken laughter. Yet, hidden beneath the surface, in quiet neighborhoods, the calm and intimate atmosphere of sentō is just as emblematic of Japanese cities and their deep history.

Tokyo saw its first public bathhouse in 1591, and over the centuries these multiplied in the capital and beyond. By 1968, there were 2,687 bathhouses in Tokyo and 18,325 in Japan.

Sentō evolved over time. For example, low entrances that stopped steam from escaping gave way to more open structures connecting changing rooms to bathing areas, and male and female baths became separated.

However, sentōs’s purpose as communal bathing facilities accessible by paying a modest fee remains unaltered to this day — in fact, the characters that make up the word sentō mean “coin” and “hot water.”

On the other hand, with the introduction of private showers and baths in most homes, bathhouses’ public hygiene function has greatly diminished. Sentō, too, have all but disappeared. Since 2011, they have closed at a rate of roughly one every two weeks in Tokyo, with only 481 left at the end of 2021.

Sentō, however, are more than just about hygiene, and activists such as Holden are trying to stem the flow by showing how traditional bathhouses still have a place in modern cities.

To Holden, visiting bathhouses means exploring the back alleys that embody a deeper layer of Japan’s urban fabric tucked away from busy and anonymous main streets — and one that has been part of Japanese cities for centuries.

“Across the street from the bathhouse you have the liquor shop where the grandpas gather, the vegetable grocer and tofu shop and all sorts of local eateries,” Holden says. “Preserving a bathhouse means not only preserving that building, but this neighborhood network.”

When a bathhouse closes, Holden feels a sense of frustration at how urban development is erasing cultural heritage. His anger stems from an “ideological” feeling of being “opposed to that trajectory of the modern city ... where life is increasingly commercialized and where it’s harder to develop meaningful ties with your neighbors.”

Sanjiro Minato feels similarly frustrated when he hears of a sentō closing, though to him it’s inevitable because “they’re businesses and need to be financially viable.”

“As a sentō user, I couldn’t just stay quiet,” Minato says.

In 2015, at the age of 24, he took over the management of the century-old Ume-yu in Kyoto at a time when the historic bathhouse had a reputation of being frequented by gangsters and was going bust.

After years of toiling, Minato helped get Ume-yu back on its feet. Today, through his company Yutonami, Minato manages another four sentō throughout Japan and works with two more as a consultant.

Keeping afloat

Minato, who calls himself a sentō activist, wants to “pass bathhouses on to the next generation.” Without these local community hubs, he believes that an important channel of communication between neighbors, especially for elderly residents threatened by social isolation, would be lost.

“(Bathing with others is a) powerful mechanism that can break through anonymity and loneliness,” Holden says.

Yet saving them isn’t easy, as many are operating on the border of insolvency, he adds.

While bathhouses may receive some financial support such as subsidized water costs, their entry fee is capped by prefectural regulations, for example at ¥500 in Tokyo, where the maximum price was increased by ¥20 in July due to rising costs. In contrast, “super” sentō, large facilities that offer many types of baths and other services, can charge customers as much as they like.

“There’s a mismatch between sentōs’s public function and the fact that they’re private property,” Holden says.

Many ailing bathhouse owners choose to sell the land to real estate developers. On several occasions, Sento & Neighborhood has approached these kinds of establishments to try and convince their owners to stay open, but they are often unsuccessful.

“Usually, when a bathhouse is facing closure, it’s already too late,” says Holden.

“It’s normal for the city to grow, but bathhouses are home to many unique techniques, (including in architecture, art and carpentry),” says Sento & Neighborhood director Masaya Sammonji, an urban designer by trade. If they’re replaced by modern, standardized buildings, this “lowers the city’s value.”

Saviors of sentō

Holden and Minato have common goals, yet their approaches differ.

Minato’s company Yutonami staffs its sentō with young workers and relies on social media, media exposure and on-site events including concerts and flea markets to attract new, and especially young, customers.

“The kinds of things we’re doing, like marketing, are unusual in the sentō business but are common in other industries,” Minato says.

Though he admits there’s a risk that older customers may feel squeezed out, he believes that “if we don’t make changes, sentō won’t be able to continue.”

Holden acknowledges that for bathhouses to survive, rebranding and adapting them may be necessary. However, there should be a balance between accommodating contemporary demands such as having younger staff and holding events and preserving bathhouse traditions.

The test case for this philosophy is Inari-yu. The first step in Sento & Neighborhood’s efforts to revive the bathhouse was to register the building as a national tangible cultural property in 2019. The following year, Inari-yu was selected for the World Monuments Fund’s list of global heritage sites in need of protection. Sento & Neighborhood also secured a grant from the New York-based fund to restore part of the bathhouse and the nagaya.

Holden, Sammonji and their associates spent three years renovating the abandoned nagaya using traditional materials and building techniques that are increasingly rare. For example, its walls are made out of mud, a method that is virtually extinct in Tokyo, and the material was procured from a vendor in Nagano Prefecture, one of the last in all of Honshu.

Thanks to the building’s restoration, Inari-yu regulars now have a space to relax after a bath. The hope is that new customers will be drawn in by the nagaya’s events, including one-day cafes and shops, classes and exhibitions. Holden envisions the revivified structure as a “neighborhood living room” where outsiders are welcome and that “local people can feel belongs to them.”

Even as modern housing and office developments multiply in cities across Japan, a completely compartmentalized future may not be inevitable.

“I don’t necessarily believe the current trajectory toward increasingly private lives will continue indefinitely,” Holden says.

For bathhouses to resist the tide, “you need somebody to take the lead,” Minato says. In this sense, sentō activists occupy a niche, but an important one. Ideally, they won’t be fighting in such small numbers for long.

“Our hope,” Holden says, “is to find more people interested in supporting this kind of project.”