Nagata Shrine Main Hall

A 1928 main hall in the nagare-zukuri style

Nagata Shrine Main Hall (長田神社本殿, Nagata Jinja Honden) is the 1928 sanctuary of Nagata Shrine in Nagatacho, Nagata Ward, Kobe, housing the shrine's deity Kotoshironushi, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on February 14, 2002. It is a three-bay hall in the Nagare-zukuri style, roofed in copper, with a building area of 25 square meters.

In January 1924 an electrical fault set fire to the halls that had stood since 1661. The Nagata Shrine Main Hall was built to replace them, and the Agency for Cultural Affairs names its designer as Kagawa Sadataro.

Why the Nagata Shrine Main Hall was registered

Its registration number is 28-0076, the first of the 16 numbers given to the shrine, and it was registered as a model of form. The Agency's description reads like a checklist of traditional refinements. The hall rises from a cut-stone platform topped with a rounded base (kamebara), stands on round pillars, and is wrapped on all four sides by a raised veranda (Kirime-en) with flared railings. The bracketing (Kumimono) is a simple three-bearing type, the eaves use two layers of closely spaced rafters, and the gable carries an inverted-V strut. On the ridge sit crossed Chigi finials and a row of Katsuogi logs. The timber is lacquered red and fitted with gilt metal ornaments at key joints.

Next to the offering and worship halls of the same year, which use square pillars, carved frog-leg struts and cusped gables, the Nagata Shrine Main Hall is deliberately conservative. The shrine describes the 1928 halls as the first it built with a lacquer base under the red and polychrome finish and a copper roof.

What to look for at the Nagata Shrine Main Hall

Because the hall sits inside the lattice wall, you never see it whole from the front. Standing at the worship hall, look over the roof of the offering hall: the crossed chigi and the logs along the ridge mark the main hall. The long, sweeping front slope of the roof, which defines nagare-zukuri, is easier to read from the sides of the lattice wall.

The platform is worth a look too. A rounded kamebara base on top of the cut stone lifts the building a step higher than the halls in front. The red and copper-green color scheme has been kept up through repainting from 1961 and a new roof in 1980. In the 1995 earthquake the hall shifted and tilted with the rest of the complex, and what you see today was restored by 2000.

Visiting the Nagata Shrine Main Hall

As the seat of the deity, the Nagata Shrine Main Hall is closed inside, and ordinary visitors cannot enter the area within the lattice wall. Prayers are offered from in front of the worship hall; if you book a prayer ritual, you are taken up into the worship hall, the closest point to the main hall open to the public. The grounds and exteriors can be seen freely, but follow the priests' directions during ceremonies. Access and general visiting details are on the Nagata Shrine page.