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The villa
A shogun bought a villa in 1397 and made it a temple
Kinkaku-ji's history dates to 1397, when the shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu bought the Kitayama-dai villa from the Saionji family. The Golden Pavilion is believed to have been built in 1399. His son later converted it into a Zen temple, according to his wishes.
The gold
The top two stories are covered with pure gold leaf
The Golden Pavilion is a three-story building, and its top two stories are covered with pure gold leaf. It houses relics of the Buddha. The gold was intended to mitigate and purify any pollution or negative thoughts and feelings.
Three styles
Each floor of the pavilion has a different style
The pavilion incorporates three distinct styles of architecture, which are shinden, samurai and zen, one on each floor. The building was an important model for Ginkaku-ji and Shōkoku-ji, which are also in Kyoto.
The fire
The pavilion burned down in an arson attack in 1950
On 2 July 1950 the pavilion was burned down by a 22-year-old novice monk. The original statue of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu was lost to the flames. A fictionalized version of these events is at the center of Yukio Mishima's 1956 book The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.
Rebuilt
The present pavilion dates from 1955 and was regilded in 1986
The present pavilion dates from 1955 and is said to be a close copy of the original. In 1984 the gold leaf was found to have peeled off. From 1986 to 1987 it was replaced with gold leaf five times the thickness and ten times the weight of the original.
20 kgweight of the gold leaf put on in 1986 and 1987
Day 2, evening
It comes after Ryoan-ji.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Kinkaku-ji, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.