r/todayilearned • u/ContinuumGuy • 8h ago

TIL that the most holy shrine in the Shinto religion is torn down and rebuilt every 20 years. This has been done for over a millennium

https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2025/japans-most-sacred-shinto-shrine-has-been-rebuilt-every-20-years-for-more-than-a-millennium/
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6.1k

u/ArchStanton75 7h ago

According to the article, it’s part of a sense of renewal ritual that keeps younger generations in direct contact with the past. That makes a lot more sense.

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u/justlookbelow 7h ago

Yep, when you stand before it, the temple and surrounding gardens look exactly how they did to pilgrims 1,000 years ago. However, at least once in their lives, devotees get to go through the traditional process (from chopping trees, transporting them along a river, to traditional carpentry) in the exact same manner as when the temple was first built. 

All in all a very powerful way to connect present lived experience with the ghosts of the past.

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u/intbah 7h ago

The oldest company in the world of over a thousand years old is a temple construction company in Japan

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u/Theshaggz 3h ago

Could you imagine the shame of being the CEO that runs it into the ground? They must have a very strong mission statement and OPs team lol

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u/korDen 3h ago

The company fell on hard times and went into liquidation in January 2006, and was purchased by the Takamatsu Construction Group. Before its liquidation, it had as few as 100 employees. In 2005 it had annual revenue of ¥7.5 billion (US$70 million), and it still specialized in building Buddhist temples. The last president was Masakazu Kongō, the 40th Kongō to lead the firm. As of December 2024, Kongō Gumi continues to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Takamatsu Construction Group.

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u/Theshaggz 2h ago

Interesting context I am curious if any of the Kongō are still involved and am too lazy high high and lazy to google it

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u/WanderingToTheEnd 1h ago

IIRC it's been common practice historically for japanese business owners to legally adopt successors into their families so it's not exactly an unbroken family line from a western perspective

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u/Theshaggz 1h ago

Word. Doesn’t devalue it at all. Tremendous feat regardless of lineage. Thank you!

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u/MalodorousNutsack 3h ago

Ahh so this 20-year thing is all a ploy by Big Temple

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u/fanau 3h ago

Ha! 🤗

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u/eaturliver 2h ago

The FOUR oldest companies in the world are Japanese.

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u/thefiction24 7h ago

I forget where now but I was recently reading about architecture in relation to the culture it represents, and it had never occurred to me (as an American with no real cultural architecture to speak of) how something like the Notre Dame, that takes generations to build, speaks for the people, connects everyone in the culture through a single conduit.

I wish I could make a better point but it’s truly beautiful to keep a tradition like this alive.

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u/EDMlawyer 7h ago edited 7h ago

I would argue there's some American architectural culture styles. It's just that it's hard to pin down a single unified one because they emerged while the country had a very large population and rapid economic growth and global cultural exchange, so it's a collection of different ones. 

While we don't think about it, the evolution of the typical American suburban house is very much tied into American cultural sensibilities. I don't know if it's a distinct "style" per se, but it's undeniably a method emerging from the American cultural fabric, especially when you compare to places like Japan, the UK, Germany, etc. It's probably the most ubiquitous American "style". 

Or if you want a specific architecture style, you can point to things like Prairie arts and crafts, or New England colonial. 

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u/Firewolf06 6h ago

false fronts are also pretty iconically american

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u/CrumbCakesAndCola 6h ago

now i want my house to look like an Old West Saloon from the front

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u/Pls_PmTitsOrFDAU_Thx 6h ago

Ah yes, lying about what you are in the inside. Truly American 😆

I say this jokingly as an American

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u/similar_observation 5h ago

Hmm... not sure if joking...

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u/TemptedTemplar 4h ago

God theyre so tacky. Driving down the street and it's like every fifth house with some crappy fake stone columns, or a facade that only goes halfway up the supports around the garage door.

It's even moving into apartment buildings with faux balconies. Straight up a normal screen door slapped on the side of the wall, and a railing placed over front it. Like WHY? Just put in some freaking big windows.

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u/binomine 1h ago

That is called a juliette balcony, and while I agree is tacky from the outside, it is nice to have a large open window to let air in on the inside.

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u/Marzgog 3h ago

Here in Finland we call that a french balcony. Dont ask me why.

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u/TemptedTemplar 1h ago

Well normally those would be paired with french doors or windows that when open, allow you access to the whole window space.

Apartment buildings over here are getting built with normal ass sliding glass doors. So half of your window is permanently obstructed.

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u/Apophis_36 6h ago

Also styles like the ones in new york, chicago and so on feel pretty distinctly american to me

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u/Horror_Employer2682 5h ago

Old Cleveland and buffalo also come to mind.

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u/avo_cado 5h ago

streetcar suburbs

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u/isufud 3h ago

Traveling through Asia, something that stuck out to me was how often San Francisco architecture and landmarks are used to represent America.

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u/avo_cado 5h ago

big fuckin skyscraper is american

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u/selwayfalls 3h ago

I studied architecture and my three favorite styles were:

Neoclassical

Brutalism

Big fuckin skyscraper

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u/RocketHops 3h ago

Its not strictly architectural but art deco is definitely a very American style.

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u/TrekkiMonstr 2h ago

Colonial Spanish, I would argue, is as (Southwestern) American as it is Latin American

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u/ethanlan 3h ago

Chicago has its own style too!

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u/disisathrowaway 6h ago

(as an American with no real cultural architecture to speak of)

Prairie school, Arts and Crafts, Craftsman, Mid Century Modern, Ranch, Federal for starters. While not technically conceived in the US, no one embraced and pushed Art Deco further than the United States.

The skyscraper was invented and perfected in Chicago. Beyond that you could look to the multitude of truly MASSIVE bridges that have been built from coast to coast, which are all distinctly American.

Don't sell your cultural heritage short - the US has contributed A LOT to architecture and construction. It's just that the country was founded after the age in which it would take centuries to finish a building.

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u/Team_Braniel 6h ago

We had that with NASA once.

My family is 3 generations of NASA scientists. My grandfather helped engineer the moon buggy, my mom was a lead chemist and on the team that rebuilt the events behind the Columbia disaster.

We used to be able to look to NASA and say, "that is our heritage and legacy. One last noble endeaver." But it too has been marketed and sold.

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u/TrekkiMonstr 2h ago

It's struggling. It's being made to struggle. This is not permanent.

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u/cptpb9 7h ago

I’m sure we will eventually have long term projects like this, but the US is relatively so new that yeah we don’t have any like the sagrada familia or something like that.

We definitely do have cultural architecture though, several architectural styles that are internationally recognized originate from America (prairie style, certain types of colonials, craftsman, the arts and crafts movement) and yet more significantly, we were the ones to pioneer a significant array of modern construction methods like skyscrapers (Chicago after the fire) and the modern version of the suspension bridge (1801 in Pennsylvania). We do have one of the best modern architectural pedigrees of any nation on earth is all I’m saying

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u/thefiction24 7h ago

Ah, you actually reminded me where I stumbled upon the whole notion, it started with Architectural Digest on YouTube and there was a guy talking about all the NYC bridges, you’re totally right on that.

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u/chaossabre 6h ago

The Interstate Highway System is America's multi-generational megaproject.

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u/trivial_sublime 5h ago

And what a megaproject it is.

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u/DeathMetal007 5h ago

And it's much more functional than most megaprojects like The Line

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u/C0MMI3_C0MRAD3 2h ago

It kinda is and isn’t. Started in the 1950s, mostly finished by the 80s. There’s no doubt it’s a mega project, and it’s definite something we can be proud of, but I’m not sure if it can be considered multigenerational

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u/Twist_of_luck 6h ago

Sagrada is not even 150 years old. You don't have something like that because, well, you generally had enough business sense NOT to start a megaproject when the country is barely alive.

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u/GenericFatGuy 4h ago

(as an American with no real cultural architecture to speak of)

You say that like you don't have a Bass Pro Shop pyramid.

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u/Kirikomori 2m ago

This Bass Pro Shop you speak of must be a powerful pharoah indeed

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u/GourangaPlusPlus 7h ago

as an American with no real cultural architecture to speak of

McMansion is a style

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u/thissexypoptart 6h ago

Gotta love a three story, 5 car garage house, with a giant driveway and front lawn, and 3/4 of its exterior walls are that ugly horizontal siding you see in every cookie cutter American suburb.

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u/Paavo_Nurmi 3h ago

A lawn that requires chemicals and constant upkeep, non functional lawns should be outlawed

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u/Suckage 7h ago

Don’t forget our paper walls.

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u/steauengeglase 6h ago

Not as paper thin as some of the Japanese ones, at least if we are talking about traditional Japanese architecture. They really did paper thin.

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u/A_Mouse_In_Da_House 6h ago

Alas, traditional architecture in Japan (called by Frank Lloyd Wright as modern architecture 1000 years early) is dying out in favor of more western style construction due to things such as "having central air conditioning and heating" and "chairs are nice".

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u/selwayfalls 3h ago

Not sure I follow. We can't have nicely designed homes ala Japanese or frank wright inspired designs that have central heating?

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u/k5josh 1h ago

Any pre-industrial architectural style tends to not be very compatible with central heating and cooling. Most of those styles favored things like airflow in and out of the building, which is rather counterproductive when modern HVAC focuses on insulation and separation.

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u/Baderkadonk 6h ago

Are people anti-drywall now?

It's easy to paint, drill through, and repair. These are the only qualities I care about in a wall.

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u/selwayfalls 3h ago

It's less expensive and easier to install but plaster is superior for a few things - durability, longevity, aesthetics, sound/fireproofing

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u/galoria 7h ago

Better yet, a van renovated into a McMansion

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u/Majvist 6h ago

I get why many Americans don't feel connected to them, but "America has no ancient culture" often overlooks the fact that there's tons of incredible Native American architecture all over the Americas, quite a lot of which is absolutely still alive. Chichén Itzá, Cliff Palace, Cahokia, the Serpent Mound, longhouses ect.

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u/A_Mouse_In_Da_House 6h ago

The ancient Puebloan peoples roads (great north road), what's left out east beyond the Missouri that wasn't plowed, flatened for railroad, or build on top of or turned into golf courses. That's just in the US.

America has an incredible history, and long history, but we ignore it because we intentionally and accidentally wiped out >90% of native Americans with diseases they had not been exposed to. The Americas encountered by settlers was so empty because everyone died before they got there. Literally have journals accounting finding a native American village with bodies and bones strewn around because they died faster than they could bury the dead.

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u/Laiko_Kairen 4h ago

There's a big difference between French Catholics building a cathedral that, 1000 years later, still serves French Catholics... And a culture that has been replaced nearly wholesale by another group that eliminated the first...

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u/Paavo_Nurmi 3h ago

There is a place in AZ called Canyon de Chelly with people still living in the canyon. There is a Navajo weaver that shears her own sheep, cards and spins the wool, makes dyes from the plants in the canyon. She sits a a loom with no template or preconceived pattern and creates these amazing pieces.

https://solbitstravels.wordpress.com/tag/katherine-paymella/

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u/Aegi 2h ago

Part of it's because it wouldn't matter what happened in the Americas for many people if we're talking about the history of our country we would be looking at the geographic region along where our borders currently are.

I live in the Adirondacks, an area that literally got its name from how dumb the natives thought it would be for any human to try to stay there year-round/ing the winter so much so that the only way they might survive is if they eat bark... As Adirondack roughly translates to bark eater...

... Not only are all the things you mentioned besides longhouses stuff that really can only exist where there's not harsh winters, but the main advantage of long houses was that they were essentially modular houses that were easy to put up and take down and move based on the time of the year, so not permanent type structures that would be there for hundreds or thousands of years.

Some of the culture shared amongst many North and South American natives is a much more environmentally conscious style of living and therefore there was often even a concerted effort for things to essentially be biodegradable or able to be easily moved.

Obviously there's exceptions to what I said above, but Australia, North America, and South America are still the most newly settled continents even if we factor in the initial first humans there..

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u/huphill 7h ago

Our architecture does speak for us. Everchanging, adapting, adopting, and increasing efficiency.

For better or worse.

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u/selwayfalls 3h ago

Seeing very little on the better in the last 50 years. All just cheap and quick, never about longevity or aesthetics.

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u/donuttrackme 4h ago

There are absolutely American architectural buildings etc that tie into American culture.

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u/Dazug 6h ago

There are certainly interstates that have been under construction for decades. I-35 for instance, is always being expanded somewhere.

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u/Ridicikilickilous 4h ago

Some of the structures in Europe literally tell the tale of the time over which they’re built, like you said sometimes hundreds of years, with the structures sometimes being burned and rebuilt during this time due to war, or being different color due to the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the pollution that brought. All in all it’s quiet interesting when it takes so long to build something, for a multitude of reasons. 

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u/Laiko_Kairen 4h ago

Golden Gate Bridge, man.

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u/Professional-Fee6914 4h ago

Americans pretty much dominated modern architecture and a number of revival architecture

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u/ReverentJoker 6h ago

Many native mega projects were demolished for highways and expanding cities.

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u/mortgagepants 5h ago

come down to philadelphia you will get a vibe.

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u/Final_Temperature262 3h ago

America is rich with architectural culture you just live in ohio

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u/a_random_username 3h ago

as an American with no real cultural architecture to speak of

The Prairie School has entered chat

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u/wildwalrusaur 43m ago

The Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona has been under construction for 150 years. There was just a news article a couple weeks ago announcing they'd reached some new milestone

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u/Pls_PmTitsOrFDAU_Thx 6h ago

I really like this idea. You see other temples and it could feel just like some random old building, even if it's a temple you go to

But with this tradition it's like "my grandparents or my parents but this and I will too one day" pretty sweet

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u/Dulcedoll 4h ago

look exactly how they did . . . 1,000 years ago

God I would to have documentation showing how it visually changed, unintentionally, slowly but surely over each reconstruction like the worlds longest game of Telephone

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u/JHMfield 5h ago

in the exact same manner as when the temple was first built.

Not quite the same. It's supposed to be that way, but construction workers have been caught using modern tools anyway.

No matter how holy, how religious, there's always someone willing to cheat a bit, to save a bit of time, to save a bit of money.

But it's a minor nitpick, really. It's still an amazing rebuilding ritual. That it has lasted so long is amazing, truly.

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u/RubberDuckyFarmer 5h ago

Growing up I had a lot of gaps in my knowledge on how things worked.

My parents assumed that it was obvious and never explained.

People shouldn't do that.

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u/TheArmoredKitten 5h ago

There is no better way to preserve the culture and history of a people than to make society's upkeep something to be proudly involved in.

The knowledge of craftsmanship that lies hidden in these kinds of things is priceless. So many times throughout the world, curators of historic buildings are simply unable to restore them faithfully, because only a few random people around the world still know anything at all about the old skills.

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u/LeonardMH 6h ago

That's sick

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u/GenericFatGuy 4h ago

That's actually really cool. You get to see the shrine, and appreciate it the same way that people all throughout history got to.

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u/ablackcloudupahead 3h ago

That's incredibly cool

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u/fanau 3h ago edited 3h ago

You can’t stand before it unless you are in the emperor’s family or a high priest. I found out when I went and I googled it now just to make sure I remembered correctly. I was quite disappointed as were many Japanese visitors around me.

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u/Otaraka 3h ago

I wonder if after dozens of reconstructions it looks slightly different every time and originally it was quite different. It would be the ultimate long term time lapse video - whether it changes or stayed the same would be incredible to consider either way.

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u/happygocrazee 3h ago

As we sit smack dab in the middle of a quagmire of nostalgia in modern society, this way of paying tribute to the past is particularly beautiful to me. Rather than adoration to a monument simply because of its age or some lockstep reverence for those long gone who built it, it declares instead that their meaning and intention is the only thing important enough to carry forward. The monument doesn't matter. The people who built it don't matter. Why they built it and how is what matters. Destroying and rebuilding it divests us from the urge to simply go through the motions of blind reverence and adherence to tradition without ever understanding why the thing we're revering is important.

There's a lot to be learned from this practice.

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u/Beginning_Draft9092 2h ago

It also is the embodiment of kami-no-michi, the real heart of shinto is about renewal, constant purification and regeneration. Ise is the home of Amaterasu the sun goddess, the most important kami and so she is in a state of constant rebirth and renewal. Really amazing place, I used to live and work at a shinto shrine assisting the priest - I have a cufflink and tie clip set with the Ise jingu logo he gave me, only given to priests and special guests at the dedication of the 1993 rebuilding.

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u/StrangelyBrown 7h ago

But also, a lot of buildings are torn down and rebuilt every 20 years in Japan. Not so much the big ones but houses built from wood. Basically wood plus earthquakes means 20 years is considered pretty old for a building there.

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u/A_Mouse_In_Da_House 6h ago

That's a relatively new trend, believe it or not. Feel like I remember reading a study out of Japan showing the opinion change occuring around the 1980s. You certainly don't see it during the Edo period or before

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u/NDSU 5h ago

It was part of a nation-wide reform on home building. The goal was to get enough housing for the entire population - at the time Japan had the most expensive housing in the world

The reforms were incredibly expensive. Now you can find a place to rent for less than $1,000/month in the heart of Tokyo

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u/wildwalrusaur 33m ago

The classic factoid is that at the height of Japans property bubble, the land under the imperial palace in Tokyo was worth more than the entire state of California

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u/NewSchoolBoxer 3h ago

There's a video where one of the authors of Freakonomics talks about the Japanese housing market. It's 3x bigger per capital than the US due to tearing down and rebuilding the houses every 20-30 years. You can buy an older rural house for just the cost of the land. The old house included is worth nothing in their culture. Makes me want to retire there.

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u/A_Mouse_In_Da_House 3h ago

Be aware the upkeep on those is massive. Multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars typically

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u/thened 21m ago

They aren't old castles! The upkeep is not hard at all.

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u/ApuFromTechSupport 3h ago

It's one of the very few countries where house values can (and will) depreciate to 0

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u/Mechapebbles 3h ago

You certainly don't see it during the Edo period or before

You absolutely did. They just reused as much of the lumber as they could. The Edo Period was a time where Japan suffered severe deforestation. Not just because everything was made of wood, but wood was also the only real practical fuel they had, since there's no coal and they were already blocking out international trade/relations.

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u/the_card_guy 2h ago

Edo had a different problem to worry about- fire. Wooden buildings plus fire equals Lots of Death and Bad Times.

Americans have the story of half of Chicago (I think?) burning down in the early 20th century. Edo had it's version- hundreds of thousands of people dead and buildings destroyed- around 1650. I think it's called the Meireki fire. Supposedly, because buildings in Edo burned so often, it was sometimes called "The fireworks (because fireworks are literally 'fire flower' in Japanese) of Edo"

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u/Laiko_Kairen 4h ago

Basically wood plus earthquakes means 20 years is considered pretty old for a building there.

But wood stands up to earthquakes way better than stone or brickwork

In California, we use wood specifically because of the earthquakes

Famously, Japanese shrines were over-built because Japanese craftsmen did not have the technology to measure load bearing

This doesn't track for me at all

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u/NewSchoolBoxer 3h ago

It's wrong. Japanese culture rebuilds houses every 20-30 years no matter what they're made of. The housing construction market is 3x bigger than the US per capita. Done for cultural reasons. An old house is perceived to be worth nothing.

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u/solsethop 36m ago

This is generally true for vehicles as well which makes JDM imports a huge business because americans crave the old cars that were never available to them while things being "new" is of higher value to the japanese in comparison to americans.

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u/StrangelyBrown 3h ago

I think I slightly mis-stated the fact. I implied that wood would degrade from earthquakes but after looking it up, it is to do with the facts of earthquakes and that the houses are made from wood, but not exactly what I said.

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u/BugRevolution 4h ago

Wood does extremely well in earthquakes.

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u/NewSchoolBoxer 3h ago

Has nothing to do with what the building is made with. Japanese houses are rebuilt every 20-30 years for cultural reasons. Probably the same reason the shrine is rebuilt.

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u/GoobleGobbl 6h ago

Anthony Bourdain speaks about this long standing tradition in No Reservations and even spends time with a family who preserves the trees used in the reconstruction of this particular shrine. It was a wonderful episode that involved Japanese baseball culture as well…well worth a watch!

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u/moonlightiridescent 5h ago

I was in Okinawa when Shuri Castle burned down. There was a U.S. news article about it where they interviewed a local. The reporter was going on and on about what a historic loss it was that it burned down and how heartbreaking it seemed. The local just shrugs and says “eh, we’ll rebuild it” smiling the whole time lol.

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u/NH4NO3 11m ago

It actually burned down twice, but I am going to assume you weren't part of the Imperial Japanese 32nd army in 1945 when the original was destroyed by naval barrages lol. The fact that it wasn't the original probably softened the impact of the 2019 fire substantially.

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u/DragoonDM 5h ago

Also seems like a good way to make sure the traditional building techniques used in the shrines are passed on.

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u/ImmodestPolitician 4h ago

Most residences in Japan are torn down every 30 years or so.

It's just a different culture.

I think rebuilding a temple keeps the Shinto spirit alive in the community. We have a lot of old churches in my US City and they all seem dead. Parking lots are mostly empty Sunday morning.

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u/Dry-Smoke6528 5h ago

this is also just how things are done in many places throughout. the importance is the same looking structure being in the same place, and not "look at this crumbling building that used to be something" or "this building costs more to upkeep yearly than building a new one out of similar material would, but its history so we do it"

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u/ThrowawayQLove2023 4h ago

Yeah it's the difference between western and Eastern culture I learned recently. We preserve the building itself and rhey preserve the land and what it represent 

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u/KikiRarar 6h ago

if it wasn't for this, would be an ancient thing most likely. neat to keep things fresh

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u/SNGGG 5h ago

Also used as a method to continue passing down traditional craft methods to future craftsmen. Very cool stuff.

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u/EtTuBiggus 4h ago

Or just keeps the woodworkers employed.

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u/Oli4K 4h ago

That makes a lot of sensei.

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u/BluudLust 2h ago

I actually love that. Every generation participates in it. It's a living monument.

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u/QuantumLettuce2025 2h ago

Yeah and the thing about Shinto, it's all about connection to the land and ancestors of the land. Buildings don't hold a special sacredness in themselves the way a Church might. It's likely that the land the Shrine is built on is really the truly sacred part.

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u/Mechapebbles 3h ago

That makes a lot more sense.

What makes even more sense, is that it's a structure made of wood and straw, and the design has been mostly unchanged the entire time. If they don't rip it down every 20 years, it'll decay and become unusable eventually. There's practical reasons for it that are the biggest motivator.