Japan Navigator

Below is a photo from 1905 showing the Golden Pavilion with two maiko at the edge of the pond.

Now call the present-day Golden pavilion to mind. Can you see the difference?

[KINKAKU-JI -- Two Maiko Posing at the Golden Temple, Kyoto. From the Flickr Photostream of Okinawa Soba]

Answer: there is not a spot of gold on the Golden Pavilion. Of course, as you know, the all-too-famous Golden Pavilion of today is a copy. In July 1950 the original Golden Pavilion was torched and all that remained of it were blackened timbers and ashes. In a few minutes time the pavilion that in the picture still floats gracefully above the pond was annihilated.

Therefore, the Golden Pavilion we see today is a reconstruction. The new pavilion was carefully and truthfully rebuilt in wood, but in my view there is one problem: the new pavilion almost collapses under its weight of gold. The pavilion of 1905 was just a bare wooden structure.

(Interestingly, the “original” Golden Pavilion was not a tourist hot spot. Just like nearby Ryoanji, it was rarely visited n the first half of the 20th c., also foreigners were scarce. )

What about the original pavilion built by Yoshimitsu in 1394? Was　that really coated in so much gold? Or is the present pavilion a falsification from Japan’s Bubble Years, a true “nouveau riche” object? In that case, it can only have been built to fool all those hordes of tourists…

P.S. The pond has been changed too – those rocks are much larger than the present ones.
P.S.2 I know I am repeating myself – but this is just such a good picture…