is peeling off due to deterioration over time. The site of Kinkaku-ji was originally a villa called
Kitayama-dai (北山第), belonging to a powerful statesman,
Saionji Kintsune. Kinkaku-ji's history dates to 1397, when the villa was purchased from the Saionji family by
shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu and transformed into the Kinkaku-ji complex. The original Golden Pavilion is believed to have been constructed in 1399. Gold was an important addition to the pavilion because of its underlying meaning. The gold employed was intended to mitigate and purify any pollution or negative thoughts and feelings towards death. Other than the symbolic meaning behind the gold leaf, the
Muromachi period heavily relied on visual excesses. by a 22-year-old novice monk, Hayashi Yoken (
Kinkaku-ji arson incident), who then attempted suicide on the Daimon-ji hill behind the building. He survived, and was subsequently taken into custody. The monk was sentenced to seven years in prison, but was released because of mental illnesses (
persecution complex and
schizophrenia) on 29 September 1955; he died of
tuberculosis in March 1956. During the fire, the original statue of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu was lost to the flames (now restored). A fictionalized version of these events is at the center of
Yukio Mishima's 1956 book
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, The reconstruction is said to be a close copy of the original, although some have questioned whether such an extensive gold-leaf coating was used on the original structure. In 1984, it was discovered that the gold leaf on the reconstructed building had peeled off, and from 1986 to 1987, it was replaced with 0.5 μm gold leaf weighing 20 kg, five times the thickness and ten times the weight of the original. Although Japanese gold leaf has become thinner with the passage of time due to improved technology, the 0.5 μm gold leaf is as thick as traditional Japanese gold leaf. The interior of the building, including the paintings and Yoshimitsu's statue, were also restored. The roof was restored in 2003. ==Design details==