Renkyoji Temple Priests' Quarters

Renkyoji Temple Priests' Quarters

The kuri stands just east of the main hall at Renkyo-ji, a Shinshu Takada-ha temple on the wooded rise of Takabari in Nagoya's Meito Ward. Carpenters raised it in 1763, the thirteenth year of the Horeki era, roughly half a century after the temple moved to this hilltop in 1716.

In a Japanese temple the kuri is the practical building. Kitchen, offices, and the resident priest's household all fold under one roof. The plan runs nine and a half bays along the front and four bays deep, entered from the gable end beneath a gently pitched roof of pantile.

A Registered Cultural Property, Valued for Restraint

Renkyo-ji's kuri was entered on the national register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 2 May 2017, one of six temple structures listed together that day. The register recognizes buildings that contribute to the historic character of the Japanese landscape, and the kuri qualifies on the strength of its plainness.

Its walls are shinkabe plaster with the timber posts left exposed. At the gable the small struts and beams of the roof frame are shown openly rather than hidden. The building keeps the honest look of an eighteenth-century working temple rather than the decorated face of a hall meant for ceremony. It is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, a rank distinct from the higher Important Cultural Property listing.

What to Look For

Step inside and the layout reads clearly. The southern third is a packed-earth doma, the old kitchen and passage floor. To the north sit the living rooms, arranged in three ranks running east to west.

The butsuma, the room that holds the family altar, is finished with a toko alcove and a built-in tsukeshoin desk beside the window, the single formal touch in an otherwise sober interior. Look up at the gable end and the roof carpentry is laid bare, a quiet lesson in how a large temple household was built to last.