Byōdō-in in Uji began in 998 as a villa of Minamoto no Shigenobu, later bought by Fujiwara no Michinaga, and Fujiwara no Yorimichi made it a temple in 1052. The Phoenix Hall's completion is given as 1052 in the infobox and 1053 in the text. The article names no architect, and credits the sculptor Jōchō with the Amida statue.
The Phoenix Hall has a central hall flanked by two L-shaped wing corridors and a tail corridor, at the edge of a pond. A pair of phoenix statues sits on the roof, and the interior holds a single gilded Amida statue of Japanese cypress, given as 2.4 meters in the lead and about 3 meters in the text. Raigō paintings on the doors are an early example of Yamato-e.
A fire set in 1336 burned most buildings, leaving the Phoenix Hall as the only surviving original. It is a National Treasure and part of a UNESCO site since 1994.
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