Ise Grand Shrine
Shinto shrine complex at Ise, Mie prefecture, Japan.
At a glance
| Source | Author | Role | In one line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Breakneck | Dan Wang | subject | Wang uses Japan’s holiest Shinto shrine as the model of process knowledge: cypress halls, no nails, rebuilt every twenty years (63rd reconsecration due 2033), so each generation learns the craft. |
Breakneck — Dan Wang (2025)
Source: Readwise highlight
Since it was first erected in 690 AD, craftspeople have completely rebuilt its sacred temples—made of wood and hay—every twenty years.
- Role: subject
- In the book: Wang uses Japan’s holiest Shinto shrine as the model of process knowledge: cypress halls, no nails, rebuilt every twenty years (63rd reconsecration due 2033), so each generation learns the craft. He contrasts this with the US forgetting how to make Fogbank and with Notre Dame’s fire.
- Why it matters: A non-Chinese foil to Simon Leys’s point that eternity should inhabit the builder, not the building; it grounds the chapter’s technology-as-living-practice argument. Mie Prefecture is not stated in the text. Vault check for an existing note failed (502 errors), so existence is unverified.