Sugamo: Togenuki Jizō (Kōgan-ji) and Jizō-dōri 巣鴨地蔵通り商店街／曹洞宗萬頂山高岩寺
Kōgan-ji, ‘the grannies' Harajuku’: 780 m of shops, a 1957 temple in reinforced concrete
Kōgan-ji temple, of the Sōtō Zen school, was founded in 1596 and moved to its present site in Sugamo in 1891; it is known as Togenuki Jizō, ‘the thorn-removing Jizō’, from the tradition that its sacred image heals ailments. The present main building, in reinforced concrete, was completed in 1957 to a design by Yokoyama Hideya (then a lecturer at Tōhoku University): it reproduces in a modern material the forms of a traditional wooden temple, and was designated a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (登録有形文化財) on 8 January 2009, the second building in Toshima-ku to receive that designation, according to the temple's official site. The street alongside it, Jizō-dōri, has over time become a destination aimed above all at elderly visitors.
Tokyo
Sugamo
