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慈照寺観音殿（銀閣）
Ginkaku, the Silver Pavilion, is the two-storey wooden Kannon Hall at Jishō-ji in Kyoto. Built for Ashikaga Yoshimasa’s Higashiyama villa, it combines residential and Zen Buddhist architectural forms, with a Kannon image on the upper floor.
Ginkaku identifies the pavilion; Ginkaku-ji is the familiar name for the temple, formally Jishō-ji. The pavilion and Tōgudō are the two surviving villa-period buildings. Tōgudō’s celebrated study belongs to that separate hall, not to the pavilion.
The lower storey, Shinkūden, draws on residential architecture. Its waist-height openings and sliding screens differ from the Buddhist hall above. Comparing openings, railings and details beneath the eaves reveals more than looking at the surface colour alone.
Chōonkaku houses Kannon and uses Zen Buddhist hall forms, including cusped katōmado windows. A pyramidal roof is covered with thin wooden shingles, a technique called kokerabuki, and topped by a phoenix. The two storeys belong to one deliberately varied composition.
Kokerabuki uses thin, hand-split wooden pieces rather than bark. Roofers overlap them closely in successive courses and fix them with bamboo nails, joining many small pieces into a continuous covering. The Agency for Cultural Affairs and the Japanese Association for Conservation of Architectural Monuments identify board preparation and roofing as skills that conservation must sustain.
The official photograph below shows kokerabuki work, making the separate pieces and their overlapping arrangement visible. It illustrates the roofing technique generally; it does not document a repair at Ginkaku. The pavilion itself appears in the earlier overall view.
The temple identifies Kinkaku and Saihō-ji’s Ruriden as precedents. Yoshimasa revisited the Golden Pavilion built by his grandfather Yoshimitsu. Ginkaku has two storeys with distinct forms, rather than simply reproducing Kinkaku’s three-storey composition at a smaller scale.
Excavation researcher Shigeharu Hikihara records black lacquer inside and outside the upper storey, with polychrome decoration beneath its eaves. Hexagonal incised guide lines also survive. These finishes, combined with the residential lower floor, suggest an appearance different from today’s weathered surfaces. The study does not date every decorative layer to the original construction in 1489.
After the Ōnin War, Yoshimasa chose the former site of the burned Jōdo-ji for his villa, beginning construction in 1482. Residential halls and Tōgudō preceded the pavilion’s frame raising in March 1489. The start of the estate and the pavilion’s construction are separate dates.
Yoshimasa died in 1490 before seeing the pavilion completed. His will directed that the villa become a Zen temple, named from his Buddhist name and subsequently called Jishō-ji. Its maintenance and use continued within this new religious institution.
Mid-sixteenth-century fighting damaged the temple, while Ginkaku and Tōgudō survived. Major work followed in the seventeenth century. The temple dates the familiar name Ginkaku-ji to the Edo period, when it came to be used in contrast with Kinkaku-ji.
A 1799 illustration in Miyako rinsen meishō zue places the pavilion among its pond, trees and visitors. It records an Edo-period depiction of the site; the image does not establish every detail of the fifteenth-century garden.
The temple faced difficulties amid early-Meiji anti-Buddhist activity, followed by repairs to the pavilion and other buildings. Major dismantling work followed in the Taishō period. The pavilion received protection under the older system in 1900 and National Treasure designation under the current system in 1951. The 1994 World Heritage inscription covers the serial Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto, including Jishō-ji.
A 2013 Kyoto Prefecture conservation interview with Arima Raitei describes the three-year repair begun in 2008. Removing wall material exposed traces of staggered shelves and an alcove. The discussion also explains conservation’s emphasis on maintaining the existing state: evidence of an earlier interior need not lead to complete reconstruction.
Kyoto City’s historical account states that silver foil was not applied; whether Yoshimasa had a definite plan for it remains uncertain. The name Silver Pavilion developed in the Edo period in contrast to the Golden Pavilion, and became a familiar name for the temple. The later name and the evidence for lacquer and colour belong to different parts of the building’s history.
No. Ginkaku is the Kannon Pavilion; the temple is Jishō-ji.
The villa began in 1482; the pavilion’s frame was raised in 1489.
Kannon.
No. They are separate surviving buildings.
No. It is an Edo-period depiction.
They are closely overlapped in successive courses and fixed with bamboo nails.