What a kuri is
A kuri is the building in a temple given over to cooking and to the daily life of the monks. It combines an earth floor with living rooms and normally stands apart from the main hall, joined to it by a corridor.
Large examples hold many rooms. The priests' quarters at Jikoji in Niigata Prefecture, built in 1759, are described as 26.7 by 14.1 metres, Irimoya-zukuri under copper sheet, with the abbot's room and a study at the upper end towards the main hall, a sanctuary to the guardian of the kitchen, an earth floor and the cook's offices at the lower end, and an earth-floored veranda across the front, in a large building conveying the layout of a Soto Zen temple of the later Edo period.
The arrangement reads clearly: living and reception at the upper end, cooking at the lower. The office responsible for meals has its quarters there, under the protection of the deity who guards the kitchen.
A corridor links it to the hall. The entrance and tea room at Shinryuji in Gifu Prefecture, from the late Taisho period, are described as the corridor connecting the main hall to these quarters at a Pure Land temple, with an entrance under a curved gable to the south and a gabled Chashitsu to the north.
Hall and quarters in one
Some temples combine the two. The main hall of Jokeji in Shiga Prefecture, from the early Edo period, is described as a Pure Land hall that serves as both worship hall and quarters, its roof Irimoya-zukuri in Kayabuki, now under temporary sheet metal, with pantiled canopies on all four sides giving it the look of a farmhouse, and though its partitions, floors and ceilings have been altered more than once, it conveys the character of a small early modern preaching hall.
The comparison with a farmhouse is the point. Where a temple could not afford a separate hall, the combined building took a domestic form.
Unlike the Hōjō, this is a building for living in. Records count it separately from the hall and the abbot's quarters, and its Insū is given structure by structure.
Two written forms of the Japanese word are in use, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs mostly uses one of them.
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs: National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties (structures)
- https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkazai/shokai/yukei_kenzobutsu/kokuho_bunkazai.html
- National Cultural Properties Database: Jikoji priests' quarters, abbot's room and study at the upper end, kitchen and monks' offices at the lower
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00009140
- National Cultural Properties Database: Jokeji main hall, a Pure Land hall combining worship hall and priests' quarters in one building
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00003106
- National Cultural Properties Database: Shinryuji entrance and tea room, a round window in the recess beside the alcove
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00014385
Last verified: 2026.09.11