Restoration work of centuries old Japan's Aso Shrine begins

The Shimizu Corporation has begun the restoration work of the Romon Gate (Tower Gate) of Aso Shrine, a historical shrine in Japan's Kumamoto prefecture, built 2,300 years ago, which suffered heavy damage in the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake.

The Tower Gate is said to be one of the three famous gates built in Japan which had a very traditional style.

Founded more than 200 years ago, Shimizu Corporation has an experience of building traditional architectures.

To restore important cultural properties one must first return to the traditional methods, which were used to build the original architecture and follow these methods by using splints and metals (iron) if needed structurally and reuse original parts as much as possible.

Among the Tower Gate-covered roofs (elementary roof), Shimizu has been working on dismantling the materials that supported the roof by skilled carpenters.

Dismantling the collapsed Tower Gate is important as the broken parts of the gate are transferred to a newly-built storage warehouse and each part is numbered and stored.

Yuuki Kawahara, Construction Chief, Shimizu Corporation said, "We dismantled the reusable parts that have not been damaged. In addition, since there is no drawing of the damaged part of the building, we must research on how to rebuild the parts step-by-step. Even in Japan, this kind of work is considered unprecedented. Shimizu has been involved in the building of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples for 200 years, and has used all our know-how and work to develop new ones".