From Ashikaga Yoshimasa’s mountain villa to the modern monzen-machi, the painters of Kitashirakawa, and the postwar approach to Ginkaku-ji.
An eight-chapter local-history archive, slowly walking through 500 years of Sakyō’s eastern edge,
built on old maps and photographs from Kyoto University and the Kyoto Prefectural Library and Archives.
Kan’ei-go Manji-zen Rakuchū-ezu and Shinpan Heian-jō; how were today’s Kitashirakawa and Ginkaku-ji-michi drawn on early-Edo city maps?
CH. 2Miyako Meisho-zue, Kyō Meisho Annaiki, Higashiyama Nishiyama Kyō Meisho. Ginkaku-ji and Higashiyama as drawn in the guidebooks Edo-era travellers carried.
CH. 3Higashiyama-dono Hakkei and Higashiyama Goroku. How did the eighth Muromachi shogun’s Higashiyama-dono become “Ginkaku-ji”?
CH. 4Photographs of Ginkaku-ji left behind by Kyoto photographers Kurokawa Suizan and Kondō Yutaka — the approach, pond, and garden before mass tourism.
CH. 5Hakusasonsō, the residence the Nihonga painter Hashimoto Kansetsu built in front of Ginkaku-ji. The cherry trees lining the Philosopher’s Path begin here.
CH. 6Why so many good restaurants cluster in this neighbourhood. Shirakawa stone, alluvial-fan springs, the Shirakawa-me water-women, and Kyō-yasai vegetables.
CH. 7Ginkaku-ji and the Philosopher’s Path show a different face once the tourists leave. Three routes — 20, 40, and 60 minutes.
CH. 8From the vast manuscript collections released by Kyoto University, the medieval Sakyō-ku — including Ginkaku-ji, Higashiyama and Kitashirakawa — comes into view. Documents read as images, no transcription required.