Sannenzaka, Kyoto

Sannenzaka is a temple and shrine town spreading across the foot of the Higashiyama hills in Kyoto, now covering 8.2 hectares. It was chosen as an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings on 4 September 1976, on the same day as Gion Shinbashi. This area on the eastern edge of Kyoto was developed early, and its history goes back to before the Heian capital was built. The town started out as a cluster at the gates of temples and shrines such as Kiyomizu-dera, Hokan-ji and the Gion shrine.

From the middle of the Edo period, streets grew up along the roads that link these temples and shrines, and the district reached its present form after the urban expansion of the Meiji and Taisho eras. Kyoto City's material regards the teahouses and the shops selling traditional crafts along the road today as descending from the sightseeing tours of famous places in the early modern period. What is worth seeing, then, is less the age of any one storefront than the fact that the town arose for people walking from temple to shrine, and that this use has continued.

Along the walking route stand souvenir shops, teahouses and homes. It is not only the buildings that make up the streetscape. Stone steps and stone walls are part of the street, and the streets combine straight and curved lines. Differences in height are bridged by steps and gentle slopes, so the view changes as you walk. The terrain produces a variety that a flat street cannot. The district takes its name from a slope, but the point is less the gradient itself than the fact that slopes and steps form the skeleton of the townscape.

In the history of preservation, the city's 1972 cityscape ordinance came first. Described as Japan's first comprehensive urban landscape conservation measure, it designated the Sannenzaka area (5.3 hectares, about 240 houses) as a special conservation and restoration district. In 1975 the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties was revised to create the preservation district system, and in 1976 the area became a national district. Kyoto had been taking its own steps to protect it before the national system existed. The district was later enlarged to 8.2 hectares (about 280 houses), including Ishibei-koji. Kyoto City material dates the enlargement to 1995 and the National Council of Traditional Building Preservation Districts to 1996; the Council explains that it brought in a good modern residential area.

As for combining it with its surroundings, the National Council describes the townscape as spreading along a walking route that links Kiyomizu-dera, Kodai-ji and Yasaka Shrine. If you treat the district not as a stand-alone sight but as part of the road that connects temples and shrines, it fits its origin as an approach town. Gion Shinbashi was selected on the same day, so within one continuous walk you can compare two different characters, a temple-and-shrine town and a teahouse district.