Jodoji Temple Priests' Quarters

About the Jodoji Temple Priests' Quarters

The Jodoji Temple Priests' Quarters (浄土寺庫裏, Jōdo-ji Kuri) in Oji Nishimachi, Oita City, is a late Edo-period residence and kitchen building that became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 23 October 2008.

Every Japanese temple of any size has a Kuri: the working half of the compound, where meals are cooked, the resident priests live and the temple's business is done. At Jodoji it stands north of the Main Hall and, like the hall, faces east. It is long and narrow, 8 and a half ken by 4 ken in plan, with a hipped roof (Yosemune-zukuri) in standard pan tiles (Sangawara-buki) and eaves (Hisashi) wrapped around all four sides. The timber building rises 2 storeys and covers 164 square metres.

Oita City describes it as the oldest building on the site. The Agency for Cultural Affairs dates it to the late Edo period, with alterations at the very end of that era.

A Castle Hall, Twice Over

The temple's website tells two versions of where the Priests' Quarters came from. Its page on the Heisei restoration says the building is a reception hall moved from Usuki Castle in 1769. Its cultural-properties page instead says it was the reception hall of Kitsuki Castle, built in the early to middle Edo period.

The castles differ, and neither the Agency nor the city mentions any relocation. What can be said with confidence is that the building dates from the late Edo period and is the oldest on the grounds. The castle story is best read as temple tradition.

Why It Was Registered

The Priests' Quarters was registered in the 61st round on 23 October 2008 as number 44-0150, for contributing to the historic landscape of the country.

The reasoning is about ensemble. The Priests' Quarters, the Entrance and Corridor and the Main Hall all present their fronts to the east in a single line, and the Agency credits that alignment with giving Jodoji its weighty, unified appearance. The kuri was valued as one of the buildings holding that composition together.

The Agency also notes that the building keeps some old-fashioned features, above all square posts with deeply chamfered corners set at intervals of roughly one ken.

What to Look For

A hipped roof turned end-on

Although the roof is hipped, the entrance is placed on the short gable-end side (Tsumairi), so from the east you see the narrow face of a building that runs a long way back. The city notes that old-style hinged doors survive on the ground-floor front.

Three zones from front to back

Inside, the plan divides into three broad zones along its length. At the far western end are a reception room with a Tokonoma alcove and an inner reception room beyond it. Working spaces at the front and formal rooms at the back is the usual order in a kuri.

Chamfered square posts

The main posts are 6 sun square, with their corners shaved back in broad, careful chamfers. Setting posts this close together, about one ken apart, belongs to an older way of building, before carpenters learned to span wider gaps.

The Heisei restoration

According to the temple, subsidence had affected the Priests' Quarters as well as the Main Hall, and both were repaired in a five-year restoration that began in 2008, keeping the old pillars and roof timbers where possible.

Visiting the Priests' Quarters

The Jodoji Priests' Quarters is the priests' home and the temple office, and as of October 2026 there was no notice of any interior opening. Assume that the rooms and posts described above cannot normally be seen from inside.

You can see the exterior from in front of the Main Hall by looking north. The gable-end front and the eaves on all sides are clearest from beside the entrance porch of the corridor. For temple business, the office can be reached at 097-532-3534.