4193-4193 Travel Guide

The Light House is one of the Setouchi Triennale art projects around Takamatsu's islands, converting an ordinary house into a space staged around 'light and shadow'. Daylight enters by day, lights shift by night, letting visitors re-sense time and surroundings in a quiet room — a typical small-scale, local Setouchi work.

Yakuri-ji is the 85th temple of the Shikoku 88-temple pilgrimage, formally Gokenzan Kanzeon-in, perched at 375 metres on Mt Gokenzan across from Yashima. Founded by Kobo Daishi (Kukai) in 829, it takes its mountain name from five swords said to have fallen from heaven during his practice and been buried to protect the peak; eight roasted chestnuts he planted before sailing to China had all sprouted on his return, giving the temple the name 'eight chestnuts'. The principal image is Sho Kannon, and the Shoten-do enshrines Kangiten, famed for prosperity, matchmaking and study success — locals call it 'Yakuri no Shoten-san'. Burned in the Tensho wars, the main hall was rebuilt in 1642 by lord Matsudaira Yorishige, whose hollyhock crest remains; the site looks out over the Seto Inland Sea and Yashima.

Important: this venue closed in September 2014 and demolition began in April 2026, scheduled to run until September 2027. It is not open to visitors, the site is fenced off, and entry is not possible. The former Kagawa Prefectural Gymnasium was designed by Kenzo Tange and completed in 1964; its sweeping suspended roof, resembling a traditional Japanese boat, earned it the local name Ship Gymnasium. To create a vast column-free interior, Tange used an advanced cable-suspended roof structure, and the building is regarded as a landmark of postwar Japanese modernism alongside his later Yoyogi National Gymnasium and Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. It hosted sport and civic events for half a century before ageing and seismic concerns shut it in 2014. Kagawa Prefecture decided on demolition in 2023, and the prefectural assembly approved a contract of about 847 million yen in December 2025. A citizens' committee has proposed buying and converting the building into a hotel using private funds, gathered tens of thousands of signatures, and filed a residents' suit at the Takamatsu District Court to halt the public spending; the dispute continues. A visit today is closer to a lesson in architectural heritage: only a fragment of the silhouette shows above the hoardings, alongside an unresolved public argument over whether a world-class building should be erased.

The Hyakujushi Bank Head Office is a representative historic building in central Takamatsu, Kagawa. The name 'Hyakujushi' (114) draws on the old province name 'Sanuki'; its red brick and Renaissance-style facade is a fine example of modern financial architecture and remains a local landmark of finance and townscape.

The Kagawa Prefectural Office is the prefectural government building in Takamatsu. Its old main hall is an early-Showa reinforced-concrete modernist work, noted for clean geometric massing and exposed-aggregate (sponge) concrete, registered as a tangible cultural property — a case study in prewar Japanese 'government architecture'.