Introduction

Kyoto was Japan’s political and cultural capital for more than a millennium before the dawn of the modern era. Throughout most of that period, it was home and ritual center to the emperor and the civil aristocracy, the focal point of both sectarian and warrior politics, and the seat of the country’s most successful industries. Until about the fifteenth century, it was also among the world’s largest cities and, as the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, it was a place where the political, artistic, and religious currents of Asia coalesced and flourished. Despite these and many other traits that make Kyoto a place of both Japanese and world historical significance, the physical appearance of the premodern city remains largely unknown. What makes this problem significant is that there existed in premodern Kyoto a strong relationship between space, place, and authority. As an imperial city planned according to Chinese geomantic models and embedded with status-specific architectural codes, the cityscape itself can be read as a text rich in information on politics, religion, and daily life. Understanding the built environment, therefore, reveals a great deal about the structures of power and social organization in early Japan. Through a synthesis of textual, pictorial, and archeological sources, this book explores that environment with the aim of opening up new vistas for thinking about key aspects of premodern Japanese history.

In 1974, John W Hall published a brief essay titled “Kyoto as Historical Background.” While in some respects this book is a dramatic expansion and updating of that early work, its refusal to see the city as mere “background” is novel. This is a history of architecture and space that examines how the city changed over time, from a classical imperial capital in the eighth century, first into a thriving medieval metropolis in the twelfth, and then finally—after a devastating age of war and lawlessness—into an early modern castle-town. While the policies and personalities of various leaders, institutions, and commoners who shaped the city over time figure prominently in the

Narrative, the focus returns time and again to the city itself, its homes and temples, roads, markets, and monuments. In this respect, this is an urban history in the purest sense. The city is the topic, not merely the setting or backdrop of what is otherwise a social, cultural, or institutional history.

Architecture and urban planning have been closely tied to influence and authority in virtually any city of any age. In Europe, the very act of establishing a city was itself key to political expansion from as early as classical antiquity. In Sicily, for example, Hellenistic road plans and thickly columned city halls bespoke of the ideals of egalitarianism and democracy just as much as they did Athenian dominion. Across the Iberian peninsula and Germanic countryside, Rome imposed order and spread centralized control by superimposing grids upon native settlements. Urban grids in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam were unmistakable signs of Sinification and, as such, civilization. At the height of Western colonial expansion, imperial powers created “new towns” next to native antecedents in Delhi, Casablanca, Saigon, New Orleans, and elsewhere. Once independent, former colonies created entirely new, purpose-built capitals in Washington D. C., Canberra, and Brasilia. In each of these cases, grand urban plans and public buildings served to instill confidence in the citizens of a fledgling nation while projecting strength abroad. Their locations reflected an impulse to settle yet unsettled frontiers.

For its role in inspiring awe and confidence in public authority, monu-mentalism is another virtually universal trait of great historical cities. The Arc de Triomphe and the Washington Monument are only two among many famous structures that serve no function other than to symbolize the power embodied in the state, be it authoritarian or democratic. Dualfunction structures such as the Chateau de Versailles or the Great Wall of China were just as potent. Urban monuments need not always be physical objects, however. The breathtaking vistas of Beijing and Philadelphia harness the visual magic of perspective to inspire awe and instill foreboding.

In premodern Kyoto, the relationships between form, function, and influence were particularly strong due to the city’s special status. The classical capital was established for the express purpose of serving as an inert venue of imperial government and ritual, a place to accommodate the emperor, state institutions, the lives of its officials, and little else. Notions about functional purity informed taboos proscribing the existence of religious institutions, violence, warriors, and burial. These and other ideals made Kyoto and its architecture powerful symbols and constant reminders of the authority of the state and the emperor. For those who sought to

Possess the kind of public authority the city was created to symbolize and functionally accommodate, the capital’s founding spatial and architectural ideals impacted their interactions with the cityscape, what they built, where, and how.

Despite profound changes to both the city and its polity over time, Kyoto’s ruling elite continued to reinforce notions about the capital being an exclusive domain where the state remained not merely relevant, but supreme. The impulse for such a view—which rapidly became anachronistic—was similar to that which motivated the almost universal coveting of imperial ranks and posts: Reinforcing and respecting the classical state in both its abstract and material forms remained elemental to claims of legitimacy. Long after the weakening of public institutions and the rise of temple and warrior power from about the twelfth century, the traditional imperial hierarchy continued to be the universal benchmark of elite status while the capital remained the formal venue of imperial ritual and statecraft. Working to maintain the integrity of both, however imperfect, was a marker of membership in the traditional order, a membership that power holders of all stripes—including courtiers, monks, and warriors—sought to attain and maintain with unflagging enthusiasm throughout most of the premodern age. Central to this discussion is the complex interplay of “public authority” and “private power.” In this study, the former refers to the formal, statutory, and ultimately abstract efficacy of the state (or emperor) while the latter signifies the real-world influence of individuals or institutions with access to massive wealth and vast networks of personal allegiance. As we shall see, focus on the built environment sheds new light on this old dichotomy, which runs like a topical thread through the entire book.

This study begins by exploring Kyoto’s highly idealized urban plan as adapted from Chinese models in the eighth century. First described in literary sources as “Heian-kyo,” meaning the “capital of peace and tranquility” emperor Kanmu’s new city was meant to be a monument to a strong, centralized, Chinese-style polity. Land was divided systematically into identical blocks, and roads were laid out according to a symmetrical grid pattern. The emperor and his bureaucratic offices occupied a large, exclusive enclosure at the top-center of the city, while the civil aristocracy built official residences that were symbols of formal status and prescribed venues of ritualized statecraft. Wide, level roads facilitated efficient transportation as well as choreographed imperial processions. Heian-kyo was

Meant to be a mononuclear capital: the imperial institution was the political, economic, and social center of gravity, and every constituent element of the city was oriented around a single, unified, public core. A panoply of formal codes and indelible social customs dictated everything from the location of the city itself to the width of its roads and the styles of aristocratic palaces. Where people lived, what they built, and how they interacted with the cityscape were guided by principles of status, propriety, and precedent. At least that was the ideal.

The second chapter reveals how the classical urban model failed to be realized or, even in cases where it was, the results were often short-lived. For example, not only does it appear that Heian-kyo’s hallmark urban grid was never finished as planned, but the way its blocks were defined and used in practice also departed significantly from the original, and ultimately unrealistic, top-down planning scheme. We also discover how evolving politics, financial problems, and natural disasters conspired to almost entirely eviscerate the primary venues of imperial government by as early as the eleventh century. The Imperial Palace, government bureaus, and diplomatic compounds disappeared at an alarming rate while the western half of the city was promptly converted into farmland. Finally, elite palaces never quite lived up to their structural and functional ideals as the rarified venues of ritualized statecraft.

Over time, influence became increasingly privatized. By the tenth century, due in large part to the expansion of tax-free landed estates (shoen) and hereditary control of government offices, the location of real-world influence had shifted from the Imperial Palace to the residences of court aristocrats, religious institutions, and, in time, the headquarters of retired emperors and warriors. The third chapter examines how these nodes of private political and economic influence became the nuclei of dense clusters of urban development. The advent of nodal urban development, it is argued, constituted a profound spatial transformation whereby Kyoto evolved from a state - and emperor-centric city into a composite of semiautonomous urban islands associated more by proximity than by a unified urban identity. The structure of the medieval city became a homology of the sociopolitical conditions of the era: space, like power, was fractured, privatized, and pluralistic.

Thinking in terms of nodes of privatized power helps explain the appearance of several premodern urban phenomena that, although well known, remain unappreciated for their historical significance. First among these are the suburbs of Kamigyo and Shimogyo. Chapter 3 begins by

Explaining what led to the formation of these areas in early medieval Kyoto and how they acquired their distinct social characteristics, with Kamigyo as the elite district and Shimogyo as a thriving hub of commoners and commerce. Also examined is the appearance of numerous temporary imperial palaces that, over time, became increasingly less temporary. Known as sato-dairi, these compounds themselves, as centers of private wealth and sexual politics, played key roles in the process by which state institutions were weakened through privatization. A similar description can be applied to many of the large sectarian temples that came to virtually surround the city, as well as three temple-palace complexes built by retired emperors in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The latter, including Shirakawa, Toba, and Hojuji, are of particular significance because their synthesis of administrative, religious, and military facilities embodied an attempt by members of the imperial family to reassert influence through private channels. And as we shall see, their doing so from bases located outside the formal boundaries of the imperial capital was of profound significance.

During the medieval era, heightened attention was given to questions about what should and should not be built within the city, who should be excluded, and who was allowed to enter. Chapter 4 explores the emergence of a medieval discourse on capital exclusivity that conveys an impulse to insulate Kyoto from the growing influence of temples and warriors. In this context, precisely where the city’s boundaries were drawn became an important question, and a difficult one to answer due to physical change having rendered the classical grid obsolete. The geopolitical dilemma, I argue, led to the articulation of the notion of “Rakuchu-Rakugai,” meaning “the capital and its surroundings.” Coming into currency in the thirteenth century, this well-known term and its eventual discursive mainstreaming indicated a powerful impulse among the traditional capital elite to revive classical notions of an inviolable realm, however small, where state authority remained unchallenged. Such an interpretation is reinforced by a discovery that the dichotomy of medieval power mapped neatly onto the geographic binary of “Rakuchu-Rakugai.” Readers familiar with early Japanese history will be well aware of the tendency for men of great influence—noble and warrior alike—to enjoy a sort of dual identity: one as public servants and another as possessors of great private power and wealth. Inside the capital, within Rakuchu, these men maintained official residences (honjo) that in terms of their sizes and styles generally adhered to status-based building conventions. Outside, they created lavish temple-palace complexes (betsugyo or besso) that reflected vast private

Wealth and influence, as well as personal religious convictions. The most powerful figures in Kyoto’s premodern history consistently built and used Rakugai complexes as bases from which to rule from behind the scenes. It was this trend that led to the creation of many of the most important architectural monuments that stand on Kyoto’s outskirts today, including Byodoin, Sanjusangendo, Kinkakuji, and Ginkakuji.

Established in 1336, the Ashikaga shogunate was the first and only warrior regime to make its headquarters in Kyoto. Chapter 5 begins by exploring the ways Ashikaga leaders interacted with Kyoto’s urban landscape, particularly in terms of what they built and where. The findings uncover a striking level of shogunal deference toward classical spatial paradigms, indicative of a reluctance to violate age-old capital customs. The second part of the chapter shows that successive Ashikaga leaders consistently built capital residences in the same styles as their aristocratic counterparts, shinden style. Doing so endowed them with the architectural infrastructure necessary to conduct rituals that authenticated their membership in the imperial hierarchy. In sum, the urban record supports a growing body of evidence suggesting that the Ashikaga shogunate’s success in Kyoto was due in large part to the regime’s adherence to the behavior and language of traditional authority rather than (merely) forceful coercion.

The last part of this long chapter outlines the recent discovery that Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the third and most powerful of the regime’s shoguns, had a master plan for medieval Kyoto that entailed a fundamental reorganization of capital space. All of Yoshimitsu’s major building projects—including several major temples, the Imperial Palace, and his own shogunal headquarters—lined up along a series of axes that overlapped to form a complex and highly contrived urban matrix. The evidence suggests that the shogun was constructing a cityscape in which each of the most powerful bodies of interest (the imperial estate, warriors, and monks) was assigned a clearly defined place within the greater order, an order that he himself was constructing in the process. Yoshimitsu’s well-organized urban plan was the material manifestation of a political unifier capable of reversing the medieval trend toward ever greater degrees of political and urban fragmentation.

The dramatic physical and social changes that took place during the Age of Warring States (1467-1680s) are the topic of chapter 6. While the findings of earlier research are echoed strongly, the discussion is novel in terms of its focus on how the violence, fires, and lawlessness of the age conspired to decisively sever the physical and philosophical tendrils that

Anchored Kyoto to its classical past. The Onin War (1467-1477) and the conflicts that followed destroyed the urban grid and key venues of aristocratic pageantry. Shinden style and the formalized activities it facilitated became unsustainable while the ubiquitous presence of warriors and temples erased all traditional notions about capital exclusivity. Commoners and soldiers of the most base origins began buying, selling, and controlling land within the old city as the boundaries of that space came to be defined by walls and moats instead of laws and customs. The classical city and all it was meant to represent were finally and truly wiped away during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.

The final chapter explores Kyoto’s postwar reconstruction under the successive leadership of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The first section examines Nobunaga’s impact on the urban landscape through the construction of the castle of Nijo in 1569. Besides transforming Kyoto into a castle-town (joka-machi), Nijo’s creation—as well as its eventual destruction—contributed to the city’s postwar revitalization. The second section of this chapter explores even more substantial changes under Hideyoshi. Through either his creation or rehabilitation of several major architectural projects, Hideyoshi sought to use monumentalism as a means of co-opting and leveraging the authority of Kyoto’s traditional institutions. By accepting imperial honors, moving to Kyoto, and then taking up residence within a courtly palace, he signaled that his legitimacy was tied to public authority, not just military might. This chapter also explores several large-scale zoning projects and the creation of a wall around the city. Throughout, a case is made that Nobunaga and Hideyoshi’s impact on sixteenth-century Kyoto both established the basic framework of the modern city and became the prototype for the many castle-towns that proliferated throughout the archipelago during the succeeding era.

The book ends with an epilogue that briefly introduces some of the most important architectural and urban projects of the early modern era (1600-1868).

A project of this nature cannot begin without some qualifying remarks. First, this is by no means a comprehensive history of premodern Kyoto. Such an endeavor would be well beyond the scope of a single volume and, most likely, the capacity of any single author. To be sure, a great many details about the city’s almost countless historic temples, palaces, and monuments have been reluctantly abbreviated for the sake of providing a largely panoramic overview of the entire premodern age. Coverage, however, is

Admittedly uneven. The medieval era receives the greatest attention, with chapters 3 through 6 containing the most original findings. Earlier and later sections draw liberally upon the research of others. Throughout, commoners, who always made up the largest segment of Kyoto’s population, receive far less attention than they deserve. Alas, despite archeological findings that have mitigated the perennial problem of investigating an almost universally illiterate demographic, the profound material impacts of Kyoto’s commoners prior to the sixteenth century remain mostly and tragically ellusive.

This book touches on a wide range of academic debates, including several that continue to occupy scholars of Japan at home and abroad. While the findings reinforce some interpretations and challenge others, this study seeks to overthrow none. It is simply not that kind of project. Instead, the overarching aim is to demonstrate how careful attention to space, place, and the built environment can reveal novel facets of old problems, enriching complexity and opening up new avenues of interpretation. If the book succeeds in achieving this method-based objective, its value will surely outlive any single argument that might otherwise have been advanced.

A final comment relates to sentiment and sentimentality. Kyoto is a place that evokes tremendous fascination and admiration. It is a city of great natural beauty and virtually countless architectural treasures. In Japanese literature, no other single location has been celebrated as frequently or as floridly as Kyoto. The city has one of the highest concentrations of Buddhist temples in the world and boasts as many as seventeen UNESCO World Heritage sites. Because it was the only major Japanese city not subjected to aerial bombardment during the Second World War, its many wooden houses, narrow byways, and shops give it a distinctly traditional flavor that visitors tend to find appealing. The author is equally fond of Kyoto, enough so to have conceived of a book-length project aimed, in part, at maximizing his time there. Nevertheless, this work is decidedly unromantic. Readers seeking effusive descriptions of the architectural and cultural glories of Japan’s “eternal capital” may be disappointed. The images of early Kyoto that come from literary works such as The Tale of Genji or The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon are not reinforced. This is not to suggest that these images are inaccurate. They are simply not useful in the context of a study of this nature, where urban forms and the premodern cityscape are examined as historical artifacts, not cultural treasures. Readers may instead notice a marked ambivalence toward the use of subjective terms altogether. References, for example, to architectural “opulence” or “grandiosity” are

Limited primarily to cases where such traits were unambiguous, sometimes even codified, markers of status or influence. Otherwise, they are generally (although not entirely) avoided. This principle notwithstanding, the hope is that readers will find that even when stripped of romance and effusion, Kyoto remains an attractive city of unquestionable historical and cultural significance.