Saikyoji Temple Shikidai Entrance and Shoin

An 1859 Entrance and Reception Suite Beside the Main Hall

Saikyoji Temple Shikidai Entrance and Shoin (西教寺式台玄関及び書院, Saikyō-ji Shikidai Genkan oyobi Shoin) is an 1859 formal entrance and reception suite at Saikyoji in Saiwai, Izumi City, Osaka Prefecture, and it was listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on October 7, 2014.

The single-storey timber building is joined to the left side of the main hall and has a hip-and-gable irimoya roof laid with interlocking round and flat tiles. Its footprint is 76 square metres. A shikidai, the low boarded step where guests of rank alighted and were received, fronts the building, which combines an entrance hall with shoin rooms for entertaining visitors.

The East Gate, at the southern end of the precinct's east side, is the everyday gate and leads straight to this shikidai entrance. Worshippers heading for services went through the Great Gate to the main hall; daily comings and goings and the reception of guests had their own way in.

The Room Sequence and the Shikidai Front

The Saikyoji Temple Shikidai Entrance and Shoin was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape. The Agency for Cultural Affairs singles out the woodwork around the shikidai, which lends the building real dignity.

Behind the shikidai is a six-mat entrance room. A four-mat room then leads to the shoin itself, a pair of rooms of eight and six mats wrapped by a veranda. The rooms grow larger and more formal the farther a guest is led inside.

Across the front of the shikidai, at lintel height, runs an osa-ranma, a transom of closely set fine slats that admits light and air while announcing the entrance's status. Overhead is a coffered ceiling, and the carved patterns on the tie-beams and the kaerumata braces take the form of waves and clouds.

What to Look For

Start with the front of the shikidai. The fine vertical lines of the transom play against the rolling waves and clouds carved on the beams and braces, and the contrast gives this modest entrance its weight.

Then look at how it meets the main hall. Built about half a century after the main hall of 1808, the Saikyoji shikidai entrance hugs the hall's left side, and from the front of the precinct the two read as a single group of buildings.

Visiting the Saikyoji Temple Shikidai Entrance and Shoin

You can see the exterior of the Saikyoji Temple Shikidai Entrance and Shoin, above all the shikidai front, from the precinct. The entrance and shoin are used for receiving guests, and official information does not say whether the interior can be visited, so contact the temple in advance if you would like to see inside. Ask about photography as well. Directions are on the Saikyoji Temple (Izumi) page.