Edo

A hall of 1640 at Enryakuji on Mount Hiei in Shiga. Its earthen inner sanctuary lies three metres below the boarded worship space, keeping the basic esoteric plan.

A Buddhist temple guest hall in Otsu, Shiga Prefecture, Japan. One single page there gives two quite different dates for it, half a century apart now.

An Edo-period timber gate at Kannonshoji in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. It is measured only by its own frontage over there, and by nothing else even now.

Nidoji Shrine Main Hall in Shigaraki is a one-bay Kasuga-style sanctuary of 1703 with a cypress-bark roof, registered in 2003 as a rare Kasuga-style hall in Shiga.

Built around 1700 inside Hikone Castle, this shingled L-shaped stable kept rows of standing bays for the lord's horses. No comparable building survives in Japan.

Rebuilt in 1771 after a fire, this long turret walled one side of the Sawaguchi gate enclosure at Hikone Castle. Its blunt north gable marks a lost gatehouse.

Nine documents by Kawachiya Kashō, a wealthy farmer and brewer, and his heirs reveal how an educated villager in Edo Japan weighed family, learning, and survival.

Discover the 953-item Important Cultural Property collection documenting the achievements of Kunitomo Ikkansai (1778–1840), the 'Edison of the Edo Period.' From Japan's first reflecting telescope and sunspot observation records to the country's first practical air gun, explore the extraordinary scientific legacy born in a small gunsmith village in Shiga Prefecture.

The main hall of Iimichi Shrine in Koka, Shiga, built in 1649, layers a triangular gable and a cusped gable over its three-bay porch, all roofed in cypress bark.

Built inside the Kyoto palace in 1619 for Tokugawa Masako and granted to Enman-in in 1647, this 19.7-metre shingle-roofed shoin hall in Otsu was designated in 1902.

Eleven 17th-century buildings designated together in 2016, spread across Mount Hiei's three precincts and Sakamoto: the Monju-ro gate, Saicho's mausoleum and more.

Rebuilt around 1678 in Mount Hiei's Tōdō precinct, this ordination hall wraps a skirt roof round a three-bay core so it looks two-tiered; inside is a stone platform.

Rebuilt in 1640, this 41-bay cloister encloses the forecourt of Enryakuji's head hall on Mount Hiei. A restoration viewing stage lets you look down on its roof.

Built in 1634 as the Buddhist hall of Sakamoto's Toshogu shrine, it was moved up Mount Hiei to become the Great Lecture Hall, home to statues of sect founders.

An Important Cultural Property in Otsu, this 1670 shoin of Otsu Betsuin wraps in a U shape around a courtyard. A rare niche, hearth and shelf set its plan apart.

Ōtsu Betsuin Main Hall, Shiga, rebuilt in 1649, anchors a Higashi Hongan-ji branch founded in 1600 by the priest Kyonyo. An early-Edo Important Cultural Property.

Kannonji Shoin in Kusatsu, Shiga, is an early Edo building 11.9 metres wide with a shingled roof. Listed in 1907; said to be moved from a shogunal palace in 1685.

Completed in 1764 at Kondo in Higashiomi, Guzeiji's main hall is a mature eighteenth-century Shinshu hall, designated in 1987 with four construction documents.

The former main sanctuary of Kora Shrine at Amago in Shiga, this one-bay hall of 1634 was set aside in 1883 and preserved by that demotion; designated in 1915.

Built in 1739 at Saikyoji in Sakamoto, Otsu, this 7-by-6-bay main hall with a rear tablet hall became an Important Cultural Property in 1986. See carved monkeys.