TACOMA, Wash. — A new 5-foot-tall wooden Shinto shrine has been installed in Point Defiance Park’s Japanese Garden in Tacoma. Carved in Japan, the artwork replaces an original shrine gifted to the city in 1961 by Tacoma’s sister city, Kitakyushu, said Parks Tacoma.
They say decades of Pacific Northwest weather caused irreversible damage to the original shrine after it was relocated to the park in 1982.
In 2022, Parks Tacoma partnered with the Tacoma Sister City Commission and the Tacoma Parks Foundation to arrange for a hand-carved replacement from a master shrine builder in Japan.
The replacement shrine features natural wood rather than red paint, along with simpler carvings than the original structure. While the design differs slightly, the new shrine honors the same cultural and spiritual traditions.
The historical relationship between the two cities began in 1961 when Tacoma sent a totem pole to Kitakyushu and received the traditional Shinto shrine in return. Ross Wilton, horticulture services manager for Metro Parks Tacoma, initiated the effort to replace the aging landmark.
“This shrine represents connections – to the Japanese American community, to the importance of diversity and tolerance, to our history and to each other,” Wilton said. “We’re excited for such a meaningful piece to anchor the garden and eager for people to admire the shrine for decades to come.”
Parks Tacoma says when cost estimates to refurbish the shrine from American firms specializing in Japanese carpentry proved prohibitive, project organizers used sister city connections to reach out to builders in Japan.
Noritaka Kondo, a Japanese master shrine builder with more than 40 years of experience in his family business, took on the project. Kondo’s high school woodworking students helped draw blueprints for the design, and Kondo spent six months carving the new shrine before shipping it to Tacoma.
Kondo traveled to Tacoma in September 2024 to inspect the original structure, marking his first trip outside of Japan.
“I genuinely feel that the god inside of the Point Defiance Park shrine in a way summoned and requested me to provide a solution,” Kondo said. “In my heart, this is an assignment requested by the gods.”
Over the past few years, the Tacoma Parks Foundation raised funds to pay for the replacement shrine, which is valued at $40,000.
Mira Utz, chair of the Tacoma-Kitakyushu Sister City Committee, noted that the structure has long served as a backdrop for community memories and milestone photographs.
“This shrine has come to mean something deeply significant to the citizens of Tacoma, not only in terms of our Sister Cities friendship with Kitakyushu, but also within our own lives,” Utz said. “For generations it’s served as the backdrop to special events and appears in photographs marking proms, weddings, graduations and a myriad of special occasions. We are tremendously grateful for the opportunity to continue the spirit of friendship embodied in this Sister Cities gift and to help preserve that legacy for generations to come.”
The new shrine will remain on display in the Japanese Garden for about two weeks before staff bring it indoors to protect it from winter weather.
The original 1961 shrine is being kept in secure storage, and officials have not set a timeline for when it will be refurbished.
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