Keywords
Architecture
General Terms
Lit. Kenninji style. A school of carpentry headed by Kōra Munehiro 甲良宗広 who left Shiga Prefecture to go to Edo (Tokyo) in 1604. He reached the peak of his career after 1620. He engineered building of Nikkō Tōshōgū 日光東照宮 in Tochigi Prefecture. It was completed in 1636 and Kan'eiji Gojū-no-tō 寛永寺五重塔 (1639) in Tokyo. Enormous technical advances had been accomplished by the Momoyama period, and building construction was based more and more on drawings including elevations, dimensions of individual members and the use of kiwarijutsu 木割術 a technique developed to systematize construction ratios. As a school of carpentry, it leaned heavily on the Zen style *zenshūyō 禅宗様. Among carpenters the term kenninji is considered a Zen style.