Sensō-ji Temple
— the red the city keeps lighting again.
Not only on a wall.
“Tokyo's oldest temple, founded in the seventh century in the old shitamachi quarter of Asakusa. The Kaminarimon lantern hangs heavy and red above the gate; behind it, Nakamise-dōri runs the long approach to the Hōzōmon, lined with senbei and ningyō-yaki stalls. By dawn the courtyard is almost empty. By night the lanterns come up and the precinct holds the city's quiet centre.
Sensō-ji Temple, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Sensō-ji is the oldest temple in Tokyo, founded in 645 in the Asakusa district on the west bank of the Sumida River. It is dedicated to Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion, after a small gilded statue was reportedly pulled from the river in 628 by the brothers Hinokuma Hamanari and Takenari. The current main hall is a 1958 reconstruction in reinforced concrete, replacing the Edo-period building lost in the firebombing of March 1945. The 53-metre five-story pagoda next to it dates to the same post-war rebuild.
The great red chōchin under the Kaminarimon, the Thunder Gate, is the image most often carried away from Asakusa. It weighs about 700 kg and is replaced roughly every ten years by a single lantern maker in Kyoto. A second large lantern hangs at the Hōzōmon, the inner gate, and smaller lanterns line the path through Nakamise-dōri. After dusk, the courtyard is lit warmly and the pagoda holds its colour against the Tokyo Skytree on the far bank of the Sumida.
The temple keeps a working ritual calendar. New Year's hatsumōde draws roughly three million visitors in the first three days of January. The Sanja Matsuri, held the third weekend of May at the neighbouring Asakusa Shrine, brings portable mikoshi through the streets and counts as one of the three great Edo festivals. In July, the Hōzuki-ichi ground-cherry market fills Nakamise-dōri. The precinct is open all hours; the main hall sits unlit between roughly 5 and 6 in the morning.