Kōrin-in, Zen temple within Daitoku-ji complex in Kita-ku, Japan
Kōrin-in is a temple featuring a main hall built in the Muromachi period with carefully crafted wooden beams and sliding paper doors throughout. A garden adjoins the hall with thoughtfully arranged plants and stone elements.
Hatakeyama Yoshifusa, a regional military leader from Noto province, founded this temple in 1520 as a family sanctuary within the larger Daitoku-ji complex. The site became a private retreat for a powerful family during that era.
The garden draws from Chinese landscape principles, with flowering shrubs suggesting mountain ranges and stones representing distant islands in a carefully composed scene. Visitors moving through the grounds experience how each viewpoint reveals a different relationship between these elements.
The temple opens only during select weeks of peak season, so check the dates before planning your visit. The grounds are compact and can be explored at a leisurely pace in a short time.
Following major restoration work, this temple reopened in 2011 with its characteristic side window entrance carefully restored to original condition. Visitors can now see details that were preserved through the renovation process.
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