The shinbashira has long been thought[2] to be the key to the Japanese pagoda's notable earthquake resistance, when newer concrete buildings may collapse.
[4] The initial architectural forms included the pillar ingrained deep within the[5] foundation (Shinso ja: 心礎) Hōryūji Gojū-no-tou 法隆寺五重塔, (Gojū-no-tō: 5-layered-pagoda) was found to be 3m below ground level.
Hanshin earthquake in 1995 killed 6,400 people, toppled elevated highways, flattened office blocks and devastated the port area of Kobe.
Yet it left the magnificent five-storey pagoda at the Tō-ji Temple in nearby Kyoto unscathed, though it levelled a number of lower buildings in the neighbourhood.
The reason traditionally attributed has been the shinbashira; newer research shows that the very wide eaves also contribute to the inertial stability of the pagoda.
[10] More recently in San Francisco the renovation of 680 Folsom Street, a fourteen-story 1960s steel building, inspired an ultra-modern iteration of the shinbashira: an 8-million-pound structural concrete core that can freely pivot atop a single sliding friction-pendulum bearing during a large earthquake.