Kitayama: A Capital for the King of Japan

• In Event: Medieval Kyoto in East Asia: Exploring the Nexus of Material Culture, Literature, and Performance

Abstract

The Golden Pavilion is Kyoto’s most celebrated and well-known architectural monument. It is a UNESCO World Heritage property and testament to the influence and affluence of the warrior-aristocrat Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-1408). Despite Kinkaku’s opulence and architectural originality, the attention given to this single structure overshadows the history of the much larger complex within which it was originally built in the late 14th century: the Kitayama Villa (Kitayama-dono).

This paper explores Kitayama’s material composition to demonstrate that the villa was a vast temple-palace complex built to resemble a Chinese-style imperial capital. Just as Kyoto had been planned in the 8th century, in part, to serve as an emblem of Japan’s attainment of Chinese-style civilization, so too does it appear that Kitayama was meant to symbolize Yoshimitsu’s subscription to continental notions of material pageantry.

The site’s several palaces, temples, and function-specific gates served to facilitate pageantry that sharpened Yoshimitsu’s multifaceted identity, at once a retired court official, honorary former sovereign, and reigning “King of Japan.” Textual, archeological, and pictorial sources are synthesized to reconstruct a model of the complex, which is then projected onto modern satellite images to show Kitayama’s vastness and demonstrate how its several constituent elements facilitated the intense religious, cultural, and diplomatic engagement that typified the era.

Author

• Matthew Stavros, The University of Sydney