Tsukiji Honganji Temple

You are looking at a Buddhist temple that has absolutely no business looking like this. Domes, columns, winged lions, elephants, peacocks — this is not what Japanese temples are supposed to look like. It looks like someone airlifted a building from India and dropped it in central Tokyo. And in a sense, that is exactly what happened, architecturally speaking.

The architect Ito Chuta spent years travelling across Asia studying Buddhist architecture in India, China, and Turkey before designing this temple, which was built between nineteen thirty-one and nineteen thirty-four. His idea was to trace Buddhism back to its Indian roots and create a building that reflected the religion's entire geographic journey. The result is unlike anything else in Japan — Indian-influenced domes sitting on a Japanese foundation, with details borrowed from half a dozen architectural traditions.

But Ito had another obsession: yokai. Japanese monsters and supernatural creatures. Look closely at the stone carvings around the exterior. Mixed in with the lions, elephants, and peacocks, you will find grotesque creatures that come straight from Japanese folklore. He could not resist hiding his yokai fascination inside a solemn religious building.

Above the entrance, you will see stained glass windows that would look perfectly at home in a European cathedral. Stained glass. On an Indian-style Buddhist temple. In Japan. The building is a collision of every religious architectural tradition Ito encountered on his travels, and somehow it works.

The name Tsukiji itself means 'constructed land.' This entire area was reclaimed from Tokyo Bay after the Great Fire of Meireki in sixteen fifty-seven. You are standing on land that was ocean three hundred and sixty-odd years ago, looking at a temple that defies every expectation of what a temple should be.