This Wooden Pagoda Has Stood for 1,300 Years

Its center post was cut in 594. Here is why this wooden tower is still standing.

By Made Over Weekend · 5 min read

On a temple ground near Nara, Japan, stands a five-story pagoda built from wood. It is about 32 meters tall, and it has been standing for roughly 1,300 years. UNESCO lists the wooden buildings of Horyu-ji among the oldest surviving wooden buildings in the world.

The tree at its heart

A Japanese pagoda is built around one tall center post, called the shinbashira. In 2001, researchers at Japan's Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties studied the growth rings of a sample from this post, using X-ray photography and tree-ring dating.

Their answer: the Japanese cypress was cut down in the year 594. That is about a century earlier than the date usually given for the pagoda itself.

Why it does not fall down

Japan has frequent earthquakes, yet five-story pagodas almost never collapse. The Japan Tourism Agency explains that the pagoda's structure absorbs the energy of an earthquake, and that its assembled wood gives the building flexibility. Beams are fitted into each other, so the frame can give a little and spring back instead of cracking.

Modern engineers took note. Tokyo Skytree, 634 meters tall, has a concrete column 375 meters high at its core. Its designers named it shinbashira, after the pagoda's center post. It reduces the sway of the tower in an earthquake by up to about half.

What a weekend woodworker can take from it

You are not going to build a pagoda this Saturday. But the idea behind it is the first thing every woodworker learns: a good joint holds wood to wood.

The easiest one to start with is the half-lap. Take two boards and mark where they cross. Saw down to half their thickness on each, chisel out the waste, and fit the two pieces flush. Then glue and clamp. It is the same idea the temple carpenters used, at a size you can finish in an afternoon.

Pick a small project that uses it, like a picture frame or a simple shelf, and build it this weekend.