Meiji Jingu Ichino Torii

The massive gate standing at the entrance of this approach is crafted from hinoki cypress wood, aged over one thousand five hundred years old. This torii stands forty feet tall, marking the official transition from the city streets into the deep forest that guards Meiji Jingu. Workers harvested the timber from a mountain in Taiwan in nineteen sixty-six after the original structure, erected in nineteen twenty, suffered damage from lightning and needed a complete replacement. It holds the weight of imperial tradition.