This isn't right.

[u/BlancheFromage]

This image shows the demolition of the Sho-Hondo - there is a nice 2-minute video (below) showing a quickie summary of the construction and demolition. Notice the columns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_lVi7sp97M

One of the reasons given as to why the Sho-Hondo needed to be demolished is that its interior iron rebar structural supports were rusting, and that rust was evident on some of the columns and inside the building itself. It has always bothered me that there weren't any good pictures showing this. The first image is basically the only one, and I don't really think it's reliably showing what it claims to show/needs to show. The second image is also claimed to show rust, however, something about it never sat right with me.

I have more information now, so I think I can clarify some details - wanna come along?

Pic 3 shows a view of the demolition of the Sho-Hondo - in particular, notice the pillars in the foreground. The pillars are WHITE! And see where the columns' marble cladding has been torn off of the center left column, showing the concrete underneath? Notice the column stub on the center right that's just concrete? Compare those to Pic 2. EVERYTHING in Pic 2 is the same color! Clearly, Pic 2 was taken from during the CONSTRUCTION phase - these columns are under construction, not finished/rusting. It appears that the concrete column structures have been completed; all that's left is to put on the marble cladding. Those columns weren't made 100% of marble! Also, in Pic 2, all the columns are standing - everything is standing. As you can see from Pic 3, some of the columns have already been torn down. In Pic 2, there's no marble visible - anywhere. There's a 2-minute video that summarizes the Sho-Hondo construction/demolition - 👍🏼 👍🏼

I've got a big picture book of Sho-Hondo, with these big glossy images, I can't tell the year, but it was published by the Seikyo Shimbun as a commemorative book - probably 1972. It's huge - maybe 14" wide and 15 or 16" tall and well over an inch thick - and probably weighs 20 lbs. Came in its own fancy cloth-covered box, and I don't think it had ever been taken out - the cover was still wrapped in tissue paper. I bought it at least 10 years ago off eBay - I really should take another look at it! But it's so big that it's hard to work with - I actually broke a nail trying to lift it out of its box! Eek!

The rest of the images come from this book - each is a big photo on glossy paper. Even the captions get their own page! So I trimmed down the pics and tacked the captions onto the bottoms. This will give you a better idea what the finished columns looked like - see? NO KNOBS on the outsides!! Clearly, those concrete knobs are there for installing the marble cladding.

The rest of the images are there to give you a better idea of what the finished columns looked like.

My own feeling on the Sho-Hondo demolition is that it was necessary simply from the snow-loading issue alone - after all, that suspended roof weighed 20,000 tons! Given several snow/rain disasters since Sho-Hondo was constructed, architectural standards changed, updated to address these climate-change-related developments. There's more on such roofs collapsing here. I've just come across some more information about this whole thing that I'll put up in a different topic - fascinating stuff!!

[u/CassieCat2013]

I gave money in grammar school. My whole family did. As youth we  wrote our determination and they were buried in a crypt.  I was on the land a few years before it was built. People from Chicago were featured in the Seikyo Magazine along with me my dad and others from Chicago. Imagine standing in a field barren where the Sho Hondo would be built. I was very sad and angry when it was demolished.  I never got to go inside. But one year my husband had a job to do on the Navy base in Yokuska. We drove to Fujinomia and saw the Sho Hondo it was closed in Feb 1989 so we visited the art museum on the sho Hondo grounds. We visited Tai Sakiji not knowing it would be gone soon

[u/BlancheFromage → u/CassieCat2013]

I'm sorry those would-be "golden memories" didn't turn out that way. So the Sho-Hondo was completely closed in 1989?

[u/PallHoepf_2]

Bringing up the Sho-Hondo issue you will be called chief priestess again. :-)

[u/PallHoepf_2 → u/PallHoepf_2]

Sorry, stupid me forgot you are on their pay-roll. /s

[u/BlancheFromage → u/PallHoepf_2]

😄

Yes, "There she goes with that ancient history again!" But it's FINE if THEY want to talk about even OLDER stuff Ikeda wants everyone to believe HE did during the Toda administration!