What has kept Japan's 500 or so tall wooden pagodas standing for centuries in the face of typhoons and

earthquakes? According to historical records, only two buildings have collapsed during the past 1400
years - both of which were destroyed by fire as a result of lightning or civil war. The Hanshin earthquake
in 1995 killed over 6,400 people, toppled elevated highways, flattened office blocks, and devastated the
port area of Kobe. Yet the Toj pagoda, which is located nearby in Kyoto, remained unscathed. It leveled
a number of buildings in the neighborhood, but the pagoda itself remained standing. This is a remarkable
example of the power of luck.

Japanese scholars have puzzled over why tall, slender buildings are so stable, only thirty years after the
building industry felt confident enough to erect office blocks of steel and reinforced concrete with more
than a dozen floors. When the Kasumigaseki building in central Tokyo was built in 1968, it was
considered a masterpiece of modern engineering, thanks to its special shock absorbers to dampen the
effect of sudden sideways movements from an earthquake.

In 826, the master builder Kobodaishi used only pegs and wedges to keep his wooden structure upright,
and his majestic Toji pagoda soared fifty-five metres into the sky-nearly half as high as the Kasumigaseki
skyscraper built some eleven centuries later. Clearly, Japanese carpenters of the day knew a few tricks
about allowing a building to sway and settle itself rather than fight nature's forces. But what sort of
tricks?
The multi-story pagoda came to Japan from China in the sixth century BC, during the time when
Buddhism was being introduced to the country. Like in China, these pagodas were initially attached to
important temples. The Chinese built their pagodas in a variety of materials, including brick or stone,
with inner staircases. They used them in later centuries mainly as watchtowers. When the pagoda
reached Japan, it was adapted to the local conditions. It was built shorter, typically five stories instead
of nine, made mostly of wood, and the staircase was eliminated because the Japanese pagoda had no
practical use. However, because of typhoons that batter Japan in the summer, Japanese builders learned
to extend the eaves of buildings beyond the walls. The overhang on Japanese pagodas helps to prevent
rainwater from gushing down the walls, while pagodas in China and Korea have nothing similar.
The roof of a Japanese temple building can extend over the sides of the structure by 50 percent or more
of the building's overall width. For the same reason, the builders of Japanese pagodas seem to have
increased the weight of their tiles by using much heavier earthenware tiles.
While it is true that the Japanese pagoda is built with a large central pillar, this does not fully explain its
remarkable resilience during natural disasters. Like a tall pine tree, the pagoda simply bends and moves
during a typhoon or earthquake, providing support and stability. For centuries, many believed so. The
shinbashira does not actually carry any load, which is why it is able to move so quickly. In some pagoda
designs, the pagoda doesn't rest on the ground, but is suspended from the top of the pagoda - loosely
hanging down through the middle of the building. The weight of the building is supported by twelve
posts that are spaced evenly around the building.
The shinbashira is an important part of the Shinto shrine's architecture. It is responsible for supporting
the roof and walls of the shrine, and its presence is often a signal that the shrine is active and in use.
Shuzo Ishida, a structural engineer at Kyoto Institute of Technology, has spent a lot of time studying and
modeling the role of the shinbashira. He has done so by creating videos and testing them on a shake
table in his laboratory. The shinbashira appeared to be swinging back and forth like an enormous
stationary pendulum. Ancient craftsmen seem to have understood the principles that were applied to the
construction of Japan's first skyscrapers more than 1,000 years later, without the aid of very advanced
mathematics. What those early craftsmen nad found by trial and error was that under pressure a pagoda's
loose stack of floors could be made to slither to and fro independent of one another, Viewed from the
side, the pagoda seemed to be doing a snake dance - with each consecutive floor moving in the opposite
direction to its neighbours above and below. The shinbashira, running up through a hole in the centre of
the building, constrained individual storeys from moving too far because, after moving a certain
distance, they banged into it, transmitting energy away along the column.
Another strange feature of the Japanese pagoda is that, because the building tapers, with each successive
floor plan being smaller than the one below, none of the vertical pillars that carry the weight of the
building is connected to its corresponding pillar above. In other words, a five storey pagoda contains not
even one pillar that travels right up through the building to carry the structural loads from the top to the
bottom. More surprising is the fact that the individual storeys of a Japanese pagoda, unlike their
counterparts elsewhere, are not actually connected to each other. They are simply stacked one on top of
another like a pile of hats. Interestingly, such a design would not be permitted under current Japanese
building regulations.

What are the extra-wide eaves on the house? The task of balancing on a tightrope is one that requires a
great deal of skill and agility. Just as a tightrope walker needs a sturdy balancing pole to help them stay
upright, scientists need a stable platform on which to build their research. The greater the mass at both
ends of the steel pipe, the easier it is for the tightrope walker to keep his balance. A pagoda is also a type
of structure. Mr Ishida observes that the building's eaves, which extend out on all sides, help to dampen
the impact of earthquakes, and it remains stable even in the most severe tremors. Japanese builders of a
thousand years ago had a great understanding of modern structural engineering concepts.