at was not a member of the imperial court. The shogun died the year after. After his death the palace was turned over to the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism and it has remained under its control ever since.The Golden Pavilion is a three-story viewing and pleasure pavilion constructed on the edge of a pons as the focal point to a much larger garden on the grounds of the Rokuoni Temple. The pavilion itself is based on the Chinese Sung style, though each floor has a somewhat different aesthetic. The first floor was used as a reception room for the guests and as boarding site for pleasure boating around the small pond. The second story was for more private parties with an outstanding view of the garden. The third floor was an intimate space for meeting with confidantes and holding tea ceremony. Originally, only the ceiling of the pavilion’s third floor was guild in gold (hence its name), but in 1950 it was burned down by a student monk (Hayakawa, p. 18). A replica was quickly rebuilt in its place and is the example that contemporary visitors see.Equally important to the Shinden as its architecture was the garden itself. Another complex that contained a stroll garden is referred to as the temple garden. The grounds surrounding the pavilion lie on four and a half acres, but the use of landscape elements make its apparent size much bigger. The foreground is filled with small scale rocks and plantings. The more distant elements blend into the background, visually extending the garden. Mt. Kinugasa rises in the background. Meanwhile, the shoreline of lake rolls back and forth, hiding the true size of the small pond and making it appear as much larger than it truly is (Ito, p.93-98).“The introduction of a new form of Buddhism, and the symbolism of water color painting from southern China, had a direct influence on garden design” (Yoshida, p.14). This new religion, Pure Land Buddhism, was having an increasingly influent...
