Wayō

What wayō is

Wayō is the architectural manner that had matured in Japan by the Heian period. The word came into use to distinguish it from the Zenshūyō and Daibutsuyō manners newly brought from China, so it names the older tradition by contrast.

It is usually combined with the others. The three-storey pagoda at Chinzanso in Tokyo, from the late Muromachi period, is described as based on this manner with Zen details added in various parts, with Mitesaki brackets and closely spaced parallel Taruki at every level.

One precinct may use different manners for different buildings. Zentsuji in Kagawa Prefecture, an Important Cultural Property, is described as having a main hall at the centre of its precinct built in the full Zen-manner form, single-tiered with a pent skirt, and a five-storey pagoda 43 metres high based on the native manner, its central mast rising from the lowest tier in the older way.

Eishoji in Kanagawa Prefecture, built in 1643, is described as combining the Zen and native manners freely across its buildings in a taste characteristic of the early Edo period, unified by roofs kept straight with neither sag nor upturned eaves.

The three manners together

Medieval architecture is classified under three manners: this one, Daibutsuyō and Zenshūyō. The first is native; the other two arrived from China in the Kamakura period.

The details separate them. The Zen manner uses densely set brackets, Katōmado and panelled doors; the great-Buddha manner uses arms inserted through the columns and bracket blocks with saucer mouldings. This manner has none of those, tying its columns with Nageshi and running its rafters parallel. When a record says a building is based on this manner, it means most of the detail belongs here while some of it does not.

Few buildings are purely of one manner. From the medieval period onward the three influenced one another, and by the early modern period free combination was normal. When writing, distinguish between the manner of a whole building and elements of a manner within it.