The past is more interesting
Himeji outside the castle
This was my second visit to Himeji. The first time I came was a breif stop between two cities to get a guided tour of Himeji Castle. No doubt the most impressive castle in Japan, this time I would spend a few days staying at a capsule hotel with the intention of seeing some different architecture.
I ended up walking by Himeji castle so I took a few photos on my way to the Himeji City Museum of Literature, another Tadao Ando project. This is a pretty small project broken into two buildings. The southern building houses a small library and a display on Shiba Ryotaro who was a write credited with making historic novels. I went inside and actually found an interesting book on Tadao Ando that I read.
The north wing has a gallery on Himeji city and more exhibition space but requires payment so I didn’t go in. As an Ando project, there are many of his trademark moves that I’ve become familiar with such as ramps, stairs, and the placement of slits for light to wash along walls. As well, there are curved walls and skylights.
What ended up being the most interesting was Bokeitei, a house on the property that is part of the former residence of a successful buisness person build in 1929. I was excited to enter the building and find a beautiful tea room where the light streamed in beside a small pond. Maybe because I haven’t been in a tea room in a while but I really enjoyed sitting on the tatami mats and contemplating the space.
As an indicator of how much more I enjoyed the villa than the modern library building, I was sad to find out that 2/3rds of the villa was actually demolished to make the Literature museum. I think this was a mistake because Himeji doesn’t have a lot of tourist attractions other than the castle and an entire villa would have been good to keep. The library could have been built elsewhere and then there would have been three entire attractions.
Part of my disregard for the library is also because it’s not the most impressive of Ando’s work that I’ve seen. Both the Kyoto Garden of Fine Arts (1994), Osaka Prefecture Sayamaike Museum (2001), and the Hygo Prefecture art museum (2002) were more interesting projects. Though to be fair, this Literature Museum is one of his earlier works (1991).
The other exciting place I visited was deep in the mountains outside of Himeji. Engyo-ji is a buddhist temple located on Mt. Shosha founded about 1000 years ago. In Japan Mt. Shosha did acheive fame fas the most important training center for preists in the western area of the Kansai district but to foreigners it’s probably best known for scenes in the The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise. Most of The Last Samurai was shot in New Zealand but for the temple scenes which needed the Japanese architecture. Interestingly, the Japanese signage doesn’t refer to The Last Samurai but a Japanese period film I wasn’t familiar with.
The architecture was splendid. Maniden is a temple dedicated to the Goddess of Mercy and situated on tall stilts along a cliffside. With the fall colours begining to come in reds and oranges, the scenery was quite pleasing.
Since the temple grounds are quite extensive with a number of buildings there’s lots to see and many pathways through forests of tall cedars. Daikodo, Jikido and Jogyodo are collectively are known as Mitsunodo. Jikido can be freely entred and is quite unique for its length and two storey height. The first floor has a place for people to copy scriptures and the second level has a museum where there is also a balcony with a wonderful view of the courtyard. What’s rather interesting is that the building was first constructed in 1174 but left unfinished for several hundred years. When it was dismantled and reconstructed in 1963 it was realized that it was too close to Jogyodo so the roofs intersect.
