Japanese architecture - Japanese architecture - The Asuka period: The Asuka period was a time of transformation for Japanese society. It is named for the Asuka area at the southern end of the Nara (Yamato) Basin (a few miles to the south of the present-day city of Nara), which was the political and cultural centre of the country.

“Some of the elements that clearly indicate the Asuka style of architecture found in the four oldest Horyuji structures are: 1) the cloud-pattern bracket arms that support the eaves of pagodas; 2) a slight convex line on the pagoda columns (called entasis); 3) the stylized swastika pattern in the ornamental railings; 4) the inverted V-shaped struts beneath them.”

Bronze Buddhist sculpture of the Asuka period. Note the Tori style characteristics of rectangular head, accentuated folds in the robe, narrow eyes, and …

Hōryūji houses one of the best known, albeit mysterious, Buddhist representational sculptures of the Asuka period—the so-called Kudara Kannon 百済観音, a slim and life-size image of the bodhisattva of compassion, sculpted in camphor wood. The first cultural property in Japan to be designated as a “national treasure,” this sculpture first appeared in Japanese records in the …