Tokujuji Temple Bell Tower

Big-Building Carpentry in 26 Square Meters

Tokujuji Temple Bell Tower (徳授寺鐘楼, Tokujuji Shōrō), built in 1934, stands on the southeast side of the precinct of Tokujuji, a Zen temple in the castle town of Inuyama City, Aichi Prefecture, and was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on August 13, 2012.

The plan is one bay square: four posts and nothing more, the smallest unit a building can be. The floor area comes to 26 square meters, a single-story timber structure with a tile roof. Yet under the eaves of Tokujuji Temple Bell Tower sits bracketing of the kind normally reserved for a main hall, and it appears twice over.

The base is laid in kikkō-zumi, hexagonal stonework, each block dressed close to a six-sided face and fitted without gaps. The roof above is Irimoya-zukuri, hipped and gabled, finished in Sangawara-buki pantile.

The Hakamagoshi Form

Tokujuji Temple Bell Tower is a hakamagoshi bell tower. The lower stage is sheathed in boarding that flares outward toward the ground, a shape said to resemble the way a hakama, the pleated trouser-skirt, widens below the waist.

The standard arrangement leaves the upper stage open so the bell can hang in the air, while the lower stage stays closed. Closing it shelters the column bases from wind and rain, and it also drags the building's visual weight downward. For a structure carrying something as heavy as a bronze bell up top, that reading matters.

A veranda runs around the building where the two stages meet. At Tokujuji Temple Bell Tower this veranda carries a Kōran balustrade topped with giboshi, the onion-shaped finials long used on the railings of bridges and temple buildings. Nobody climbs up there to strike the bell, but the veranda and its balustrade are what let the building read as two distinct stages.

Why It Was Registered

Tokujuji Temple Bell Tower carries registration number 23-0349 and belongs to the 73rd round of registrations, under the criterion of contribution to the historic landscape of Japan.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that this carefully made bell tower enhances the appearance of the precinct. What that care consists of shows up in the bracketing.

Start with the koshigumi, the brackets carrying the upper veranda from below. They are futatesaki, two-stepped. In a two-stepped bracket the bearing arms are cantilevered out from the wall plane in two successive stages, which buys reach at the cost of more timbers and more joints to cut.

The brackets supporting the upper eaves are two-stepped as well. So a building of 26 square meters uses two-stepped bracketing twice. The ceiling is a kogumi gōtenjō, a coffered ceiling with finer latticework set inside each coffer, considerably more work than a plain coffered ceiling. The eaves are futanoki shigedaruki, with the Taruki rafters doubled and set at close intervals.

By the numbers this is a small structure. Its vocabulary belongs to a large one, and that is the case for its registration.

What to Look For

Look up at the eaves of Tokujuji Temple Bell Tower from an angle rather than from directly beneath. The two stages of bearing arms throw shadows, and above them the rafters run in two overlapping ranks. Stand underneath and the layers collapse into one another; step back and to the side and they separate.

Some of the coffered ceiling is visible if you stand below the veranda and look up. The fine lattice inside each coffer casts its own grid of shadow, sharper or softer depending on how the light comes in.

The stonework of the base repays attention too. Hexagonal coursing means dressing every stone to roughly six sides, far more labour than stacking rectangular blocks. Follow the joints around and you notice how the corners have been resolved.

The position matters as well: southeast of the precinct, to the right and toward the back as you come through the main gate. The tower is in view from almost anywhere in the grounds without ever blocking the approach to the main hall.

Getting There and Visiting

Inuyama Station on the Meitetsu network is roughly a 10-minute walk away. The address is 232 Minamikoken, Inuyama City, Aichi Prefecture.

The precinct is open and no admission fee is charged. Tokujuji Temple Bell Tower stands on the southeast side, and you can walk a full circuit around it. Photography is unrestricted.

Striking the bell is not offered to visitors as a matter of course. Contact the temple in advance if you wish to ring it or want to know the dates of services. A kindergarten operates within the grounds, and mornings at drop-off and afternoons at pick-up are busy; photographing at those hours is best avoided.