Izumo Daijingu Shrine Music Pavilion

What the Music Pavilion Is

The Izumo Daijingu Shrine Music Pavilion (出雲大神宮奏楽舎, Izumo Daijingū Sōgakusha) in Chitose-cho, Kameoka City, Kyoto Prefecture, is a small hall built in 1881, moved to its present site in 1908 and registered as a Tangible Cultural Property on February 4, 2021.

It is single-storey timber with a hip-and-gable (Irimoya-zukuri) sheet-iron roof and covers 29 square meters. A sogakusha is where musicians play gagaku, the ancient court music, during shrine ceremonies.

The Izumo Daijingu music pavilion stands east of the middle gate on a raised stone terrace.

A Building That Changed Jobs

The Izumo Daijingu music pavilion began life as the shrine's offering preparation hall. When a new offering hall was built west of the middle gate in 1908, this one was dismantled and rebuilt here.

That history is why the Agency for Cultural Affairs values it as a plainly designed building that records how the grounds developed. It is registered as No. 26-0619 under the historic-landscape criterion. The first and second offering halls now face each other across the middle gate.

What to Look For

Inside, the Izumo Daijingu music pavilion is a single room with an alcove (Tokonoma) and side shelves. A railed veranda (Kirime-en) runs along the south and west faces, turning the building toward the gate and the approach.

The eaves use a single tier of widely spaced rafters. Compare them with the double tier of close-set rafters on the worship hall and you can see how the builders scaled detail to each building's rank.

Seeing the Music Pavilion

Because the Izumo Daijingu music pavilion sits on a stone terrace, you look up at it from the east side of the worship hall; the verandaed south and west faces show best. The interior is not open.

Access is covered on the Izumo Daijingu Shrine page.