Status Report - HERO: Week of 04.20

Shizen Shrine's Haiden & Honden

This week has been another week working on the design of the Shizen Shrine. Most of the time has been creating the main shrine buildings, the haiden (worship hall) and the honden (sanctuary). As I mentioned last week, these buildings are connected under the same 'H' shaped roof in the gongen-zukuri architectural style being employed. I'll let the images speak for themselves, but I'd like to call attention to a few details.

Haiden with Bell Rope & Offering Box

Haiden at Right & Honden at Left with Ishi-no-ma Between

The space between the haiden and the honden in the gongen-zukuri style is called ishi-no-ma (between the stone) and the style is sometimes called ishi-no-ma-zukuri.

Ishi-no-ma

Note the twisted rope at the front entrance to the haiden. This is a shimenawa, and it marks the entrance to a sacred space or designates any holy object.

Shimenawa

Take a close look at the roof. The honden and sometimes the haiden have their roof ridges decorated with perpendicular logs called katsuogi. The ends of the ridges have decorative tiles called onigawara and are topped with forked roof finials called chigi. The chigi can be used to determine the gender of the deity worshipped at a particular shrine. If the ends are cut vertically then the deity is male. If the ends are cut horizontally, as here at Shizen Shrine, the deity is female.

Chigi & Katsuogi

I've also been able to move around and readjust the locations of the buildings on the site now that I have their specific sizes. I've fleshed out the stone sando (approach path) to encompass some of the structures and added lanterns.

Sando

What needs to be done next is the shrine office where charms and such are sold and a few setsumatsusha (auxilary shrines). Then I'll be moving on to designing the Hirayama household as it sits just around the corner further out on the peninsula. It's a traditional Japanese house and all the detailing that comes with that style.

All images are unrendered, raw SketchUp models.

Nick