Architecture

The buildings used for official ceremonies at the court naturally tended to follow the monumental, symmetrical style brought over from China in the preceding era. A good example of this public-secular type of building is the Daigoku-den (Hall of State) where coronations and other important court functions were held. This building, as reconstructed on a smaller scale in the nineteenth century at the Heian Shrine in Kyoto, is almost purely Chinese with its stone and marble floor, tiled roof, and brilliant red coloring. By way of contrast another palace hall, the Shishin-den (Audience Hall), although suitably monumental, shows the more Japanese traits of simplicity and economy of building materials. It is built almost entirely of wood from the floor up and has cypress-bark

Shingles, not tiles, on the roof. Since it was first erected, the Shish-in-den has suffered the fate common to Japanese wooden architecture of having been frequently burned. The present hall dates from the mid-nineteenth century, but is faithful to the design of the original.

None of the villas and palaces which the Kyoto aristocrats put up as their private residences have survived. However, a good idea of what they looked like can be obtained from the pictures and literature of the period, and from some surviving religious buildings. The basic plan originated in China, but was modified by creating lighter structures of wood, well off the ground and roofed with bark instead of tiles. The mansions were essentially a number of separate living quarters connected by open galleries. The separate apartments were assigned to various members of the household, which could be quite large if the noble had several wives. Within each apartment people ate, slept, and carried on their tasks

A reconstruction from literary sources of a nobleman’s mansion in the Heian period

All in the same room and on the floor, just as they do in a modern Japanese-style house.

The rooms looked out onto the garden, which filled the spaces between the buildings. As the “walls” of the house were really removable shutters, the garden could constantly be seen from within the rooms. Indeed, one of the chief features of the private residential style (known in Japanese as shinden-zukuri) lay in the close interrelation of house and garden. The garden contained small artificial hills, and was planted with trees and flowering shrubs. It duplicated nature on a small scale, and in a way which satisfied the Kyoto nobleman, whose tastes were those of a city dweller.' Usually a stream was directed to flow under the house and through the garden. The nobles sometimes amused themselves by sitting along the banks of the stream and floating down to one another cups bearing sake (rice wine) or poems. The Heian mansions must have been drafty and uncomfortable, especially in winter. But no doubt they were quite pleasant and airy in the humid heat of summer; and whatever their practical drawbacks, aesthetically they were a charming and elegant blend of Chinese formality and domestic informality-

A justly famous sacred building is the Byodoin at Uji, just outside Kyoto. It derives some of its fame from the fact that it is the only Heian edifice in the Kyoto district to have lasted through the centuries unharmed. Although for most of its long history the Byodoin has been a Buddhist temple, the site was first used by one of the Fujiwara regents, Yorimichi (990-1072), for a private villa. In 1052 Yorimichi donated the grounds to religion', and started the construction of the present main structure, which is known as the Phoenix Hall from the pair of golden birds on its roof. Much of the building’s beauty comes from this tiled roof, the sweeping curves of which resemble a bird in flight. Two galleries, ending in two small pavilions, are designed to balance and set off the hall, and to provide support for the elaborate roof. The building and garden, in true Heian style, perfectly complement each other; and the Phoenix Hall is all the more beautiful when matched by its reflection in the pond. It was meant to give an impression of paradise—in this case a paradise arrived at by setting out from China (balance and tiles) and going by way of Fujiwara Japan (wood and refinement).

Far away from Kyoto, a branch of the Fujiwara established themselves as lords of northern Honshu in the twelfth century. Their administrative capital was at Hiraizumi. For a long time now Hiraizumi has been little more than a name on the map, but in its heyday it was a city with some tens of thousands of inhabitants. The northern Fujiwara took care to dignify their capital with buildings which were evidence of both their political power and their aesthetic taste. Of all its former splendor there is now only one remnant: the Golden Hall of the temple called the Chusonji. The hall was built to house the mortal remains of three Fujiwara lords and is small, but the wooden structure is superbly decorated inside and out with gold and lacquer, jewels and mother-of-pearl. In their devotion to Buddhism and love of display, the northern Fujiwara rivaled their Kyoto relations, and their career at Hiraizumi is a striking illustration of the spread of Buddhism and the general development of the provinces in the second half of the Heian period. There is also evidence of international trade, in that some of the timbers in the Golden Hall are of wood which must have come from China and the southern Pacific area.

Another famous religious center in the provinces, this time to the west of Kyoto, is the Itsukushima Shrine on an island in the Inland Sea. A simple Shinto structure must have stood in this area from remote antiquity to serve the religious needs of fishermen and other seafarers, but for many centuries now the shrine has been large and splendid, built over the sea at the head of a small bay with the peak of the island rising steeply behind it. When the tide is out there is nothing but wet sand beneath the buildings, but when it is in, they appear to float on the water. Although the date of the present buildings is not known, their layout and architectural style go back to the twelfth century. During this period the shrine came under the patronage of the powerful Taira family, whose leaders lived at Kyoto but had extensive estates in the western provinces. It is recorded that Taira no Kiyomori, who liked to relax at Itsukushima, had the shrine completely rebuilt in 1168. A little earlier he had arranged for the presentation of a magnificently illustrated set of Buddhist Sutras. Taira patronage, which climaxed several centuries of court interest in the shrine, shows the degree to which Shinto was receptive to Buddhism in the Heian period. It also shows the way in which a remote country place assumed national significance as the court gradually extended its politics, religion, and crafts in to the provinces, and was in turn affected by them.

The shrine’s architecture exemplifies all this. It is a harmonious and intricate blend of Shinto and Buddhist styles. The bark roofs recall native tradition, the buildings follow the shinden-zukuri pattern, and the prototype for the red pillars in the galleries is to be found in Chinese architecture. Nor can the genius with which the shrine is related to landscape and seascape be overlooked. In their graceful ease of construction, open to the sun and air and waves, the Itsukushima buildings even now impart something of the Heian mood of refined simplicity, cheerfulness, and creative use of nature.