The Kyoto temple stage that has stood on wooden pillars since 1633 without a single nail

A wooden stage on a cliff in Kyoto, rebuilt in 1633 and joined without nails.

By Made Over Weekend · 5 min read

On a wooded hillside in eastern Kyoto, a temple hall leans out over the slope on a forest of wooden posts. This is the stage of Kiyomizu-dera, a temple founded in 778. The stage is an open wooden veranda in front of the Main Hall, nearly 13 meters above the ground below, about the height of a four story building.

The temple has not had an easy life. Its buildings were destroyed by fire more than ten times. After a fire in 1629, the Main Hall and its stage were rebuilt in 1633, with the backing of the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu. That is the building visitors stand on today. It is a National Treasure and part of the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto World Heritage site.

How it was built

The hall sits on a steep cliff, so the builders used a method called kake zukuri: a base of tall pillars tied together by a framework of rails, like a scaffold made to last. The stage rests on 18 pillars cut from zelkova trees more than 400 years old. The largest is about 12 meters high and about 2 meters around.

The clever part is the joint. The horizontal rails pass right through the pillars, and every crossing locks the frame a little tighter. The temple says the pillars and rails are put together without using a single nail, and that the frame is very resistant to earthquakes on the slope.

The stage floor covers about 200 square meters. When it was last replaced, more than 166 boards of hinoki, Japanese cypress, were laid down. The roof above is covered in shingles of cypress bark. The hall was taken apart and repaired in 1898, and a restoration that began in 2008 lasted 12 years.

The stage was made for performances offered to Kannon, the figure enshrined inside: court music, Noh, Kyogen and Kabuki. Its height gave Japan a saying, to jump off the stage of Kiyomizu, which means to take the plunge on a bold decision.

What it teaches a weekend woodworker

You can try the same idea on a small scale. A through tenon is a rail end that passes all the way through a square hole in a post. Take a piece of 2 by 2 for the post and a thinner board for the rail. Mark a square hole that is a little narrower than the rail, then drill out most of the waste and pare the walls with a sharp chisel, working in from both faces so the edges stay clean. Saw the shoulders on the rail and trim the tenon until it slides through with a firm push. Leave it a little long so it shows on the far side, like the rail ends at Kiyomizu.

A stage that has carried crowds since 1633 is held together by joints, not nails. Pick a small frame for this weekend, a stool or a little stand, and let one through tenon do the work.