%0 Journal Article
%T Fighting Brick with Brick: Chikazumi J身kan and Buddhism＊s Response to Christian Space in Imperial Japan
%A Garrett Washington
%J Cross-Currents : East Asian History and Culture Review
%D 2013
%I University of Hawaii Press
%X In 1915, with the support of J身do Shinsh迂 (True Pure Land) Buddhism＊s Higashi Honganji sect and dozens of private Buddhist donors, Buddhist priest Chikazumi J身kan erected a new, one-of-a-kind Buddhist meeting hall in Tokyo, the Ky迂d身 Kaikan. Chikazumi conceived of the building as a clear and deliberate spatial challenge to the crowded Protestant churches and lecture halls of turn-of-the-twentieth-century Tokyo. He chose prominent Western-style architect Takeda Goichi (1872每1938), rather than a traditional Japanese shrine or temple carpenter, to design it. The new building, in tandem with the adjacent Ky迂d身 Gakusha (Salvation Dormitory) that Chikazumi established in 1902, spoke to, and significantly impacted, the socio-moral, intellectual, and religious life of hundreds of young Tokyoites. These two buildings represented a response to Protestant Christianity＊s popularity and relevance like no other in imperial Japan. In order to achieve the religious evangelism and suprasectarian reform that he envisioned for Buddhism, Chikazumi proved willing to apply observations made in the West and appropriate practical Western Christian architectural features. Through an analysis of drawings, photographs, periodicals, institutional records, and other sources, this article tells the story of the rare fusion of opposites as Chikazumi equipped Buddhism to compete with Protestantism for the attention and devotion of the educated elite.
%K Japanese architecture
%K Buddhist temples
%K Protestant architecture
%K Chikazumi J身kan
%K Takeda Goichi
%U https://cross-currents.berkeley.edu/e-journal/issue-6/Washington