Zengyoji Temple Bell Tower

What the Zengyoji Temple Bell Tower is

The Zengyoji Temple Bell Tower (善行寺鐘楼, Zengyōji Shōrō) is the bell house of Zengyōji, a Shinshū Ōtani-ha temple in Aichichō, Nakagawa Ward, Nagoya; built around 1896, it was entered on the national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure) on 10 May 2018.

It stands southwest of the Main Hall. Timber-framed with a tiled roof, it covers 7.6 square metres, making it the second smallest of the six registered buildings at Zengyōji. It also carries the densest carpentry of the six.

The plan is one bay square and completely open, with no walls at all. Above sits an Irimoya-zukuri roof ridged north to south, described by the temple as Hongawarabuki. Repairs were carried out in 1978.

Registered as a model of design

The national database records the criterion for the Zengyoji Temple Bell Tower as "a model of design." Only two of the six buildings at Zengyōji were registered on that basis; this one and the Main Hall. The rest qualified for their contribution to the historic landscape. A structure of 7.6 square metres was therefore assessed under the same heading as a hall of 277 square metres.

The reason is stylistic. The temple calls it a well-proportioned Zenshūyō bell tower with good detailing. Zenshūyō arrived in Japan with the Zen schools in the Kamakura period and is recognisable by slender members packed close together. Zengyōji belongs to the Pure Land tradition, not the Zen schools, yet chose this idiom for its bell tower.

The mismatch is less odd than it sounds. Architectural styles in Japan detached themselves from the sects that introduced them; by the early modern period, zenshūyō detailing was used wherever a building called for formality and ornament, regardless of doctrine. Dated to around 1896, the Zengyoji Temple Bell Tower belongs to a time when that vocabulary was common property.

What to look for from below

The tower sits on a tall base of rough, uncoursed stone. Undressed blocks stacked without facing make a deliberate contrast with the finished timber above, and that contrast is the first thing you notice.

The columns are round and tapered slightly at both ends, a treatment called chimaki that makes a post look lighter than its diameter suggests. Horizontal ties bind the columns, a flat member called a daiwa runs around the top, and the bracket sets rest on that.

Those brackets are the point. They are single-step Kumimono finished with carved projecting nosings, and they are arranged as tsumegumi, meaning brackets sit not only over the columns but in the intervals between them. The eaves fill up completely. Packed bracketing of this kind is a standard marker of zenshūyō, and at the Zengyoji Temple Bell Tower it is the easiest feature to identify.

Inside, the ceiling is a fine-grid Gō-tenjō, and the eaves carry two tiers of fan rafters, splayed toward the corners like the ribs of a folding fan. Because the building has no walls, all of this is visible from any side. A great deal has been concentrated into a very small footprint.

Visiting

The Zengyoji Temple Bell Tower stands in the open precincts and can be examined at close range. The temple states that the graveyard and columbarium are open to visitors from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. without booking. Since the structure is unwalled, almost the whole frame can be read from outside.

No admission charge is published. The temple also publishes no rule on visitors striking the bell, so ask at the office before touching it; the number is 052-351-5000, weekdays from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. No photography policy is published.

The nearest station is Kogane on the Kintetsu Nagoya Line, about nine minutes on foot. A taxi from Nagoya Station takes roughly nine minutes. Drivers exit the Nagoya Expressway Route 5 Manba Line at the Kogane interchange, about four minutes away, and there is parking for ten cars; the temple warns of one-way streets in the neighbourhood.

During the July sumo tournament the Arashio stable lodges at Zengyōji and a practice ring occupies part of the precincts. Anyone planning to study the bracketing of the Zengyoji Temple Bell Tower at leisure will have an easier time in another month.