“A pavilion of a thousand mats, you say?” a curious voice whispered as we stood before the Senjokaku. Senjokaku. The name itself conjures an image of vastness, doesn’t it? Here on the sacred island of Miyajima, right beside the famed Itsukushima Shrine, sprawls a structure seemingly defying completion. Senjokaku, also known as Hokoku Shrine, is a grand wooden hall, its unfinished state whispering tales of ambition and abrupt endings. Imagine the year 1587. Japan’s powerful warlord, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, commissions this hall. He envisions a space resounding with Buddhist chants, honoring the souls lost in battle. The scale is immense. Senjokaku, true to its name, covers the area of a thousand tatami mats. Yet, fate, it seems, had other plans. In 1598, Hideyoshi breathed his last, leaving Senjokaku achingly close to completion, yet forever unfinished. As the Tokugawa shogunate rose to power, Hideyoshi’s grand project was abandoned, frozen in time. Today, as you wander through the bare-boned structure, with its missing ceilings and absent front entrance, you’re not just witnessing architectural peculiarity. You’re experiencing history’s poignant whisper. Look around. The sparseness, the echoing silence, it speaks of a vision interrupted. Yet, there’s a strange beauty in this incompleteness. Senjokaku stands as a testament to the impermanence of power and the poignant allure of the unfinished.
芸州廿日市御本陣旧跡
“A castle built on the plain?” you might ask. “Isn’t that a bit…exposed?” And indeed, the Hiroshima Gokoku Jinja, the