Anyoin Temple Worship Hall

A Small Hall Linked to the Shoten Hall

Anyoin Temple Worship Hall (安養院礼拝堂, An'yōin Reihai-dō) is a small hall at Anyoin, a sub-temple of Saikyoji in Sakamoto-honmachi, Otsu City, Shiga Prefecture; it was built in 1933 and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2001.

The national database of the Agency for Cultural Affairs reads the name as Reihai-dō. Otsu City's list of cultural properties and the Otsu City Museum of History give Raihai-dō, so the reading varies between sources.

The hall stands west of the Shoten Hall and is joined to it by a roofed corridor. It measures 3 bays by 2, has an Irimoya-zukuri hip-and-gable roof in Sangawara-buki pantiles and covers 14 square metres, making it the second smallest of Anyoin's registered buildings after the Benten Hall.

Care in a Simple Frame: Why Anyoin Temple Worship Hall Was Registered

It was registered as a model of form. The Agency for Cultural Affairs lists square posts topped with funa-hijiki brackets to carry the beam, eaves built with a single layer of widely spaced rafters yet given a gentle curve, a kitsuregōshi lattice in the gable, and Renji-mado slatted windows on the front and both sides.

None of this is elaborate. Funa-hijiki are the simplest of brackets, and the rafters are a single, sparse row. Yet the eave ends are lifted in a soft curve, the gable is filled with lattice and windows open on three sides. The registration recognises how carefully each detail of a modest structure was handled.

What to Look for at Anyoin Temple Worship Hall

Look up at the eaves. A single row of rafters set well apart is the plainest way to build an eave, but at Anyoin Temple Worship Hall that eave has been given a curve, so the roof edge lifts slightly at the ends. It keeps the outline of a small building from looking stiff.

The gable holds a kitsuregōshi, a grid of thin vertical and horizontal pieces fitted into the triangle of the hip-and-gable roof, which throws a fine pattern of shadow. The windows on three sides are renjimado, made of slim vertical slats set at even intervals.

The corridor to the Shoten Hall is a clue to how the building works. The worship hall is not a freestanding shrine but the western end of a group of buildings centred on the late-Edo Shoten Hall.

Visiting Anyoin Temple Worship Hall

No openings of the interior of Anyoin Temple Worship Hall have been announced, and no visiting hours or fees are published.

If the temple allows you into the grounds, find a spot where the curve of the eaves and the gable lattice are both visible; from there the corridor leading on to the Shoten Hall is easy to follow as well. There is no published photography policy, so ask the temple first.