ABSTRACT
For most of the eighth century in Japan the planned capital city known as Nara was the focus of church and state, culture and technology.1 Nara was officially established in AD 710 as the ‘capital city of peace’. Here the scale of urban planning and architectural construction undertaken by the Japanese state was to reach new and unprecedented proportions as it strove to emulate in its institutions and their physical setting the example of its illustrious contemporary, the Tang dynasty, then at the height of its power and glory in China. Nara was the locus of imperial government based upon the Tang-inspired penal and administrative codes (the Taiho ritsuryo codes), the centre of state religion and the matrix of a classical court culture. It was equally the cradle of new technologies, particularly in city planning and in the creation of monumental architecture, exemplified by the Daigokuden (Imperial Audience Hall) at the palace and the Daibutsuden (Great Buddha Hall) of Todaiji which, although later reconstructed on a more modest scale, is still reputed to be the largest timber-frame building in the world.
