[Fukushima] You never walk through the same place from the moment you enter until the moment you leave? Experience the mysterious building, Sazaedo!

Do you know "Sazaedo"?

It's not a seafood izakaya. It's the common name for three-story Buddhist temples with unique architecture that were built in several places from the Kanto region to the Tohoku region during the Edo period

It is said that the first turban hall in Japan was built in 1780 at Rakanji Temple in Honjo, Edo. This turban hall at Rakanji Temple astounded people at the time and quickly became a huge hit. It is said to have become a famous Edo spot, even appearing in a famous places guidebook.
Since then, several turban halls have been built in various places, but only a few remain to this day in the same condition as when they were first built. One of these is the Aizu turban hall in Aizu City, Fukushima Prefecture.

Experience a mysterious space halfway up Mt. Iimori, which is associated with the Byakkotai!

Aizu Sazaedo was built in 1796. Its official name is Entsu Sanso-do, and it is a hexagonal hall that is 16.5 meters high

As soon as you enter through the Karahafu-style main entrance, you will come to a slope. When the temple was first built, the 33 Kannon statues of the Western Provinces were enshrined along this slope, and visitors could worship them in order, conveniently completing a pilgrimage to all 33 Kannon statues by visiting just this one hall.
Nowadays, instead of Kannon statues, a framed painting of "The Twenty-Four Filial Piety of the Imperial Court" is displayed, but you still go up and down the slope to tour the hall.

This may not seem particularly strange at first glance, but inside the Sazaedo, there are completely separate slopes for going up and down, each one-way. Even though the space is not particularly large, it is designed to prevent worshippers from passing each other.
This is the Sazaedo's "double helix structure" slope. It is a rare piece of architecture worldwide, and was designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan in 1995.

When you actually go up the slope, you can hear the voices of people coming down from above, but you can't see them. It's a very strange feeling

This unique spiral structure looks like the inside of a conch shell, which is why it is called the "Sazaedo."

The complex and intricate structure was designed by a genius artist!

In fact, there is another building in France that uses a double helix structure similar to that of Aizu Sazaedo:
Château de Chambord in the Loire region, which was built between 1519 and 1547. It is thought that the double helix staircase in this famous castle, which is also registered as a World Heritage Site, was designed by the famous Leonardo da Vinci.

The unique design of Chambord Castle must have been famous in Europe at the time, and there is a theory that it reached Aizu in some form - perhaps through a book about it being brought to Japan! Although there is no
definitive proof, wouldn't it be wonderful to think about the grand romance of how the ingenuity of the Renaissance master Da Vinci is still vividly alive in Aizu?

INFORMATION

Hazukii

A writer specializing in food and travel. I love Tohoku, and I often go to Fukushima. I once committed the outrageous act of driving my own car back and forth between Kyoto and Fukushima.