Kōhai

What a kōhai is

A kōhai is the part at the front of a shrine or temple hall where the roof is carried forward to shelter the place worshippers stand. Its purpose is to keep rain off that spot.

Records give the number of bays it spans. One building at Kongobuji in Wakayama Prefecture is recorded as three bays by three, single-tiered, Hōgyō-zukuri, with a one-bay canopy and a Hiwadabuki covering. The main hall of Kasuga Shrine in Oita Prefecture, from the late Edo period, is described as a three-bay Kirizuma-zukuri hall with a one-bay canopy roofed in copper, ringed by a Kirime-en with a bracketed Kōran.

The canopy often carries a roof of its own kind. Sumiyoshi Shrine in Hyogo Prefecture, built in 1808, is recorded as three bays by four, gabled with Hongawarabuki, and a one-bay canopy at the front under a curved gable roofed in copper. Shape and material both differ from the hall behind.

Enkyoji Manidono in the same prefecture, built in 1933, is recorded as 21.9 by 18.3 metres, Irimoya-zukuri, with a projection to the west and a one-bay canopy under a curved gable on the east. Which face carries it is recorded too.

Distinguished from the flowing gable

Nagare-zukuri achieves a similar result by extending the front slope of the roof itself rather than adding a separate one. The two look alike from a distance because they serve the same purpose.

Continuity of the roof is the test. A single unbroken slope running forward from the ridge is the flowing gable; a smaller roof projecting in front of the main one is a canopy. The main hall of Kameoka Shrine in Nagasaki Prefecture, built in 1880, is described as three bays by two, Kirizuma-zukuri and entered from the eaves side, roofed in sheet metal, with a canopy at the front roofed Irimoya-zukuri in Sangawara-buki. Hall and canopy differ in both shape and covering.

Columns stand beneath the canopy, and it is where the Kōryō, the Kaerumata and the carving tend to be concentrated. It is the part the eye meets first from the front, so it is where the design shows.