Myojuji Temple Main Hall

A Meiji Main Hall Drawn by Sasaki Iwajiro

The Myojuji Temple Main Hall (妙壽寺本堂) is a Jodo Shinshu Buddhist main hall of about 1902 in Kanaya-machi, Bungotakada City, Oita Prefecture, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on March 27, 2018 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

The Agency records a single-storey timber hall with a tiled roof and a building area of 764 square metres, with the inner sanctuary and other parts renovated in 1999; registration number 44-225.

Designed by Sasaki Iwajiro

The Myojuji Temple Main Hall stands at the back of the precinct, facing east (Agency for Cultural Affairs). It is nine bays wide and eight deep, with a three-bay porch projecting at the front and a rear hall behind. Bungotakada City describes the roof as hip-and-gable with full tiling and notes that the building is more than 20 metres both wide and deep.

The architect was Sasaki Iwajiro (1853 to 1936), an Imperial Household Artist; this is recorded, and his drawings are still kept at the temple (Bungotakada City). Sasaki trained under the master carpenter Kigo Toosai and, as his assistant, handled design and site supervision for the Amida Hall of Higashi Honganji in Kyoto. He also worked with the architect Ito Chuta on designs and surveys of old shrines and temples, including the working drawings for Heian Shrine.

According to Cultural Heritage Online, the head priest at the time, Kanaya Hayami, is said to have seen Higashi Honganji and then asked Sasaki, who had designed its Amida Hall, to design the rebuilt main hall. The drawings show that Sasaki began in 1899 and finished the detail drawings step by step through 1902. The 65 sheets and two related volumes were designated a Tangible Cultural Property of Bungotakada City on September 25, 2019.

Why It Was Registered

The Agency registered the hall as a model of design. It points to the elaborate eaves, where frame brackets sit on the eave-support posts and a projecting bracket set with bearing blocks and bolsters carries the eave purlin, and to the high coffered ceiling of the outer worship space, calling it a grand and graceful hall on the standard Jodo Shinshu plan.

Bungotakada City sees the Myojuji Temple Main Hall as representative of modern temple halls in Oita Prefecture. The plan follows the classic Shin Buddhist sequence: the outer hall for worshippers at the front, then the yarai-no-ma, and at the back the inner sanctuary flanked by side chambers. Cultural Heritage Online adds that Sasaki drew on his work at Higashi Honganji to give the hall a formal plan modelled on the head temples.

What to Look For

From the front, look up at the eaves, where frame brackets and projecting bracket sets stack up on the eave-support posts to carry the eave purlin (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Inside, the city singles out the gilded openwork carving between the inner and outer halls and the chequered coffered ceiling (Bungotakada City).

Bungotakada City notes that the Myojuji Temple Main Hall was also used as a location for the 2017 film Miracles of the Namiya General Store.

Visiting

The Myojuji main hall stands straight ahead once you have passed through the main gate and the middle gate (Bungotakada City). No official information on access to the interior or visiting hours was found. The design drawings and related papers are not shown to the public, to protect them (Bungotakada City).