Main sanctuary building, Naiku
(Naiku Goshoden)
Jingu Administration Office

(Enlarged photo)
Style of the sanctuary building
The style of the main sanctuary building is distinctive to Jingu. This is the purest and most simplified style of Shinto architecture. This style is said to be basically the style of a house with raised floor used for the storage of rice about 2000 years ago, and to include some features of the Emperor's palace. Mr. Bruno Taut, a famous German architect, had compared it with the Pantheon in Greece, saying "This is the greatest of the world's buildings. It integrates the fragrant Japanese cypress and the miscanthus grass of its roof into a harmonized structure. It leaves all the potential competitors far behind. Little is known of the age when this style was established, and nothing of the men who made it. Perhaps it was created and dropped down from Heaven."