Kinkaku-ji, officially Rokuon-ji, began as Kitayama-dai, a villa of the Saionji family. The shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu bought it in 1397 and turned it into a temple complex, and after his death his son made it a Zen temple, as Yoshimitsu had wished.
The three-story Golden Pavilion, or Kinkaku, serves as a shariden, a reliquary. Each floor has a different style: shinden-zukuri on the first, buke-zukuri on the second, and Zen on the third. The top two floors are covered in gold leaf, and a bronze phoenix crowns the roof. The pavilion extends over the Mirror Pond, which reflects it, in a strolling garden with ten smaller islands.
Arson destroyed the pavilion on July 2, 1950, and it was rebuilt in 1955. In 1986 and 1987 its gold leaf was replaced with a thicker leaf. The temple is one of the 17 Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto, a World Heritage Site.
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