Saigyo went to Tohoku

Saigyo's android making,
the book from the 17th century

Saigyo lived in the 12^th century. He was an itinerant Buddhist monk who expressed his thought on life and passion toward natural beauty in the form of poetry. His way of life enchanted many, including highly-respected poets Sogi and Basho. Countless legends about him are left in a number of places in the country, many of which are funny and unusual. This must suggest that he was not only revered by the literati but loved and embraced by commoners.

Born Satō Norikiyo in Kyoto to a wealthy family of the samurai class, he lived during the traumatic transition of power between the old court nobles and the new samurai warriors. After the start of the Age of Mappo or the demise of law in 1052, Buddhism was considered to be in decline and no longer as effective a means of salvation. Only Amida’s mercy would save you. The Buddha would take all those who have faith to the Western Pure Land.

As a youth, he worked as a guard to retired Emperor Toba, but in 1140 at age 23, for reasons now unknown, he quit worldly life to become a monk. One of the names he later took was "Saigyō" meaning Western Journey, which would remind you of Amida Buddha and the Western paradise.

Being an itinerant monk, he took long, poetic journeys to various scenic places of the country including Tohoku that would later inspire Basho in his Narrow Road to the North, a journal of his travel to Tohoku. 

Saigyo died in Hirokawa Temple in Kawachi Province (present-day Osaka Prefecture) at age 73. He ended his life like his poem:

Let me die in spring under the blossoming cherry trees, let it be around that full moon of Kisaragi month.

Local legends have it that he met someone like an old woman or a child at a boundary-like point and was made ashamed of his ignorance and turned back. This intelligent monk turned back quite a lot of times!

On his way to Matsushima (Sendai, Miyagi Pref., Tohoku), he was feeling proud of the poem he had just composed. Then a child, avatar of Sanno God, came with a sickle and made a remarkable poem. Saigyo wondered who he was and asked what he did for living. The boy answered “he leaps what sprouts in winter and withers in summer.” Saigyo didn’t have a clue what this meant, then the boy said “you would reveal your ignorance in the holy land Matsushima where people are intelligent.” Ashamed, Saigyo turned back.

The most unusual anecdote about him must be the one that claims Saigyo, feeling lonely after his friend left for Kyoto, made a defective android in Koyasan. He didn’t know what to do and abandoned it deep in the mountains.

Androids were being made in the 12^th century Japan!

On top of the Yashima Plateau

A shinto shrine on the Yashima Temple grounds

These Tanuki statues stand on the premises of Yashima Temple located on top of the Yashima Plateau, Takamatsu, Kagawa. Fox statues are often seen but those of Tanuki are rare and look funny.The torii gates in the photo were dedicated by the worshipful. These gates are apt to be associated with Shinto and behind these torii gates is a small Shinto shrine.


It sounds like Buddhism and Shintoism got mixed up but that was a normal practice for hundreds of years until the Meiji Government severed their intimate relationship in 1868. This rather unfortunate situation lasted until religion and politics were separated after the end of WW2. Their relationship is never the same but legacies remain and make people stop and think.


The temple is said to have founded in the middle of the eighth century. It is the 84th of the 88 temples on the Shikoku Pilgrimage. I saw some people clad in the traditional pilgrimage attire or those in more modern gear. Both seem to be visiting some or all of the pilgrimage temples on Shikoku Island. 


I saw a pair from abroad, two tall men wearing the white authentic pilgrimage clothes and a cone-shaped sedge hat. You don't have to be so religious to visit these temples. Sometimes, we are just so eager to be itinerants, probably because we'd like to go back to basics and think who we are. Visiting temples, either large or small, gives you a good incentive to be away from routines and get refreshed and cleansed.


The views from the Yashima Plateau is spectacular. Below is the photo from the city's official web site.

Yashima Island but not an island anymore

Motomachi Apartment Complex completed!

Looks surreal but a real photo

This is a photo from a special exhibition on Motomachi, meaning the foundation town. The area was named so because Hiroshima’s development in the early 20th century started here.

The special exhibition is currently being held in the gallery on the basement level of the east wing of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The gallery lies at the further end of one of the two corridors. The poster will tell which corridor you should go down. Quite interesting to see how Motomachi transformed.

For Hiroshima survivors who lost too much, this huge Motomachi Apartment Complex was built by the city and prefecture of Hiroshima. Architect OTAKA Masato, commissioned to design the complex, made four fundamental proposals:

1. The building wings are laid out to stand in a zigzag way.

2. A large scale outdoor public space is effectively secured.

3. Humans and automobiles move on different levels, respectively.

4. Roof tops are open to the public.

Which remind you of Le Corbusier's five points of architecture:

pilotis, the roof garden, an open floor plan, ribbon windows, and a free façade.

No wonder.

OTAKA worked in the office of MAEKAWA Kunio from 1949 to 1961. MAEKAWA (1905-1986) was a drafter for Le Corbusier in Paris from 1928 to 30 and for Antonin Raymond in Tokyo from 1930 to 35.

Another feature which should be mentioned is that OTAKA designed the complex to be a community equipped with a children’s nursery, kindergarten, elementary school, stores, clinic, fire station, police station, and public bathhouse. This sounds a bit like Unité d'habitation (Cité Radieuse) by Le Corbusier. And of course, the Motomachi Complex has pilotis and roof garden.

TANGE Kenzo, who was inspired by Le Corbusier's design for the Palace of Soviets as a young man and later designed Peace Park and the Museum, also worked for MAEKAWA.

There seems to be a world wide web of humans.

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Saijo's modern architecture built in 1920s

TOYOTA Benji [1891-1959]

TOYOTA Benji designed several buildings located in Saijo's Sake Brewery Street district.  Respective office buildings of Kamotsuru and Kirei breweries and the former Saijo Branch of Hiroshima Prefectural Sake Laboratory were all designed by TOYOTA. 

Besides Sake factories, Saijo has these quasi-western buildings and old-fashioned houses of local people. Recently the Kuguri-mon gate, originally built in the 1920s, was restored and now serves as a tourist information and community space. There used to be two gates of the same type as the restored and between the gates stood stores and beyond the gate a theater. 

Feel the history of the town while walking and sipping sake in the Sake Brewery Street of Saijo.

TANGE's original plan for Peace Park

Photo courtesy of arch-hiroshima 

This is how Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and the Museum, designed by TANGE Kenzo, look today. However, the original drawing/model submitted to the competition held by the city of Hiroshima in 1949 looked relatively different though the overall framework stayed exactly the same. For one thing, the plan TANGE conceived of had to be modified to deal with financial shortage.

Let me point out one interesting item which was in the original plan but missing now: the 120-meter-wide 60-meter-high rainbow-like Peace Memorial Arch with five bells hanging from the top. It’s hard to imagine that could have been built. I’m not sure but I might not like it very much.

One of the judges, KISHIDA, praised TANGE’s plan highly but was critical of this arch thing. He said the arch looked like the gateway arch proposed by Eero SAARINEN for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, St. Louis, U.S., which was eventually completed in 1965.

It seems TANGE was conscious of the possibility that the similarity between his and SAARINEN’s would be pointed out. He included it in his plan anyway.

In an interview conducted much later, he answered that he thought it would be annoying if someone should refer to it. Because he wanted to insist that he was not influenced by SAARINE’s but by Le Corbusier’s design for the Palace of Soviets.

To see SAARINEN’s arch, click here.

TANGE’s original plan can be found here.

More historical photos including that of TANGE’s original plan are posted here. 

This is a page from Hiroshima Peace Site, the official web site of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.