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context: architecture > buddhist temples
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Todaiji
This remarkable temple was built in 758AD. It was rebuilt in the 17th Century, at only two-thirds the size of the original - which still makes it the largest wooden building in the world. The original construction allegedly involved something like 2.6 million people. There were two pagodas 330' tall originally, too, which would make them the tallest structures in the world at the time after the pyramids of Egypt. This central hall houses a gigantic Buddha statue.