Kenchuji Temple Tokkoden Hall (Former Nagoya Chamber of Commerce Main Building)

What the Tokkoden Hall Is

Kenchuji Temple Tokkoden Hall (Former Nagoya Chamber of Commerce Main Building), known in Japanese as 建中寺徳興殿 and sometimes written Tokkōden, is a wooden building of 1896 standing in the precinct of Kenchuji temple in Tsutsui, Higashi Ward, Nagoya, and it was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2000. It has two storeys, a tiled roof and a building area of 454 square meters.

Neither its original site nor its original purpose had anything to do with a temple. The building went up as the main building of the Nagoya Chamber of Commerce, the body through which local merchants and manufacturers pooled their views and put them to the authorities. In 1934 it was taken apart, carried across the city and rebuilt inside the grounds of Kenchuji, the funerary temple of the Owari branch of the Tokugawa family. Kenchuji carries a mountain name written with the same two characters that open the word Tokkoden, and that is the name the relocated building took.

The database of the Agency for Cultural Affairs still classifies the Tokkoden Hall under tertiary industry rather than religion. More than ninety years after the move, the ledger entry keeps pointing back to what the building was built for.

Why It Was Registered

Registration rests on one of the criteria used for this category: that the building would not be easy to reproduce. Two things lie behind that judgement in the case of the Tokkoden Hall.

The first is size. The Agency for Cultural Affairs records the building as among the largest wooden structures standing in central Nagoya. Its 454 square meters of floor area carry two storeys, and the upper floor holds a wide span cleared of intermediate posts. Assembling a timber frame on that scale, from comparable material and by comparable methods, is no longer a straightforward undertaking.

The second is scarcity. Buildings put up by Meiji-era chambers of commerce have mostly gone. When the Tokkoden Hall was new, a Western-style assembly chamber stood attached to it, a pairing of Japanese and Western wings that Meiji public architecture used often. Only the main building survives in the temple precinct today.

Its survival also owes something to the transfer itself. A building whose original function had lapsed was bought by another owner, moved, and put back into service with a different use. That is the path the Tokkoden Hall took, and it is why the structure is still standing.

What to Look For

The roof registers first. The Tokkoden Hall is covered in the Irimoya-zukuri form, a hipped roof whose upper portion rises into a gable, long used on temples and shrines. A commercial institution chose a thoroughly Japanese profile for its headquarters, and that choice is legible from the courtyard.

Inside, the upper floor is the room that matters. In the Nagoya Chamber of Commerce years it was the assembly room, a single large volume where the membership could gather; the floor was boarded. After the move to Kenchuji it was laid with Tatami and became a great hall for temple use. The finish changed with the function while the structural envelope stayed as it was.

Where the Tokkoden Hall sits is worth registering too. The precinct of Kenchuji holds a main hall, a two-storey gate and other Edo-period work, and the Tokkoden is the one Meiji building among them. Structures of different centuries share a single walled enclosure, which is itself a record of a temple that has kept taking buildings in.

Visiting

The precinct of Kenchuji is open, and the exterior of the Tokkoden Hall can be seen from inside the grounds at any time. No opening hours or admission charge have been published for the building, because Kenchuji uses it rather than exhibits it. Anyone hoping to see the interior, or to photograph it, should contact the temple office in advance. On days when a memorial service or a temple event is running, the hall is often occupied.

Getting there takes either a bus or the subway. From the Higashi Kuyakusho city bus stop the walk east is about 5 minutes; from Kurumamichi subway station it is about 10 minutes to the northwest. The site lies close to central Nagoya and is reachable on public transport without difficulty. Between the outer gate and the main gate the ground has been made into Kenchuji Park, and visitors pass through it on the way in.

Access arrangements can change. It is worth checking with Kenchuji directly before a visit.