Cities Miyajima Senjokaku & Five-Story Pagoda
Senjokaku & Five-Story Pagoda
- Heritage/Temple/Shrine
- Atmospheric District/Neighborhood
The why: A massive open-air pavilion (officially Toyokuni Shrine) commissioned by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1587 to chant sutras for the war dead. He died before construction finished, so it remains incomplete to this day -- no ceiling, no front gate, just exposed beams and a polished wooden floor that mirrors the surrounding maples.
Gotcha / logistics: Entry is paid (small fee) and you remove shoes at the steps. The adjacent Five-Story Pagoda is best photographed from inside Senjokaku shooting low to the floor, where the polished wood reflects the pagoda and the green canopy. Most visitors miss this angle because they walk past Senjokaku on the way to the shrine and never look back.
The “Hall of One Thousand Tatami Mats” is a study in the aesthetics of incompletion. The ceiling was never installed, exposing the immense wooden beams and roof structure. The walls were never built, so wind blows through unimpeded — cool in summer, biting in winter. The polished floor reflects the green of the maples in spring and their red in autumn, which is when the pavilion comes into its own as a photo subject.
The Five-Story Pagoda (Gojunoto) next door dates to 1407. It is normally closed to interior visits but is the most visible vertical landmark on the island after the O-Torii — it pins the skyline from any angle in the town and is the easiest reference point if you get turned around in the side streets.
Senjokaku makes the most sense as a quiet half-hour after you’ve done the main shrine. Locals come here to sit, which is a useful tell.
Hideyoshi commissioned the hall in 1587 as a place where monks would copy sutras as a prayer for soldiers killed in his military campaigns. Work was suspended when he died in 1598, and by custom was never resumed — it is considered inappropriate to complete a structure commissioned by someone who has died. The incompletion is therefore not accidental neglect but a form of reverence. The hall is technically classified as a shrine (Toyokuni Shrine) and is administered by Itsukushima Shrine.
Inside, large hanging votive paintings (ema) and wooden plaques line the rafters — offerings left by worshippers over centuries. The roof beams also display paintings of vegetables and fish donated as food offerings that could not perish. This accumulation of folk offerings gives the otherwise-bare pavilion an unexpected interior density. Senjokaku is a 10-minute walk from the ferry pier, located on the hill directly beside Itsukushima Shrine.
Hours: 8:30–16:30; no closing days.
Admission: ¥100.
Access: 10-min walk from the ferry pier, on the hill beside Itsukushima Shrine. The adjacent pagoda predates the pavilion by more than 180 years and was likely associated with the shrine complex that Hideyoshi was augmenting when he commissioned the hall.
More in Miyajima
Daisho-in Temple
The headquarters of the Omuro branch of Shingon Buddhism on Miyajima, at the foot of Mt. Misen. Historically managed Itsukushima Shrine's affairs before the Meiji Restoration separated Buddhism from Shinto. It is the mountain-and-Buddhism counterpart to the sea-and-Shinto shrine below.
Itsukushima Shrine
A 12th-century shrine complex built over the tidal flats so that the sacred island would not be wounded by construction on its soil. The corridors, Noh stage, and sanctuaries form one of the few places in Japan where the architecture is engineered to flood.
Mt. Misen
The 535-meter sacred peak above Miyajima, covered in UNESCO-listed primeval forest where logging has been forbidden for over a millennium. The summit holds an "eternal flame" said to have burned continuously since Kobo Daishi lit it 1,200 years ago, the same source used to light Hiroshima's Flame of Peace.
O-Torii (Floating Gate)
The 16.6-meter vermilion gate standing offshore from Itsukushima Shrine, the single most-photographed object in Japan. The current gate is the eighth iteration, built in 1875 from camphor wood, weighing 60 tons and held in place purely by gravity and seven tons of stones inside its upper structure.
Omotesando Shopping Street
The 350-meter commercial artery running from the ferry terminal toward the shrine -- the island's economic engine and its sensory introduction. Every Miyajima food cliche lives here -- grilling oysters, steaming buns, deep-fried momiji manju, and the world's largest rice scoop.
Machiya Street
The historical main street of Miyajima, running parallel to Omotesando one block inland toward the mountain. Where Omotesando is the tourist artery, Machiya is the residential one -- dark-wood lattice merchant houses, lantern-lit alleys, and the slower pace of the people who actually live here.