From then on the city had a rather roller-coaster ride. In the late twelfth century a fire practically destroyed the whole place, but two centuries later the Ashikaga shoguns were busily building some of the city's finest monuments, among them the Golden and Silver Pavilions (Kinkaku-ji and Ginkaku-ji). Many of the great Zen temples were established at this time and the arts reached new levels of sophistication. Once again, however, almost everything was lost during the Onin Wars (1467-78), which were waged largely within the city over an Ashikaga succession dispute.

Kyoto's knight in shining armour, however, was Toyotomi Hideyoshi , who came to power in 1582 and sponsored a vast rebuilding programme. The Momoyama period , as it's now known, was a golden era of artistic and architectural ostentation epitomized by Kyoto's famous Kano school of artists , who decorated the temples and palaces with their sumptuous, gilded screens. Even when Tokugawa Ieyasu moved the seat of government to Edo (now Tokyo) in 1603, Kyoto remained the imperial capital and stood its ground as the nation's foremost cultural centre. While the new military regime went in for extravagant displays of power, such as the Nijo-jo palace built for Ieyasu but rarely used, the emperor and his cohorts cocked a snook at such lack of taste by developing a talent for superb understatement in their architecture, gardens, arts and even everyday utensils; the rustic simplicity of the tea ceremony also evolved during this period. Undoubtedly, this sudden delight in simplicity was born partly from necessity, but it nevertheless spawned many of the crafts for which Kyoto is now famous.

In 1788 another huge conflagration swept through the city, but worse was to come; in 1868 the new Emperor Meiji moved the court to Tokyo. Kyoto went into shock and the economy foundered - but not for long. In the 1890s a canal was built from Biwa-ko to the city, and Kyoto, like the rest of Japan, embarked on a process of modernization . This has continued to this day - amidst growing controversy in recent years - as Kyoto attempts to catch up with Tokyo and Osaka. Though many traditional wooden houses have been lost to developers, the city narrowly escaped a worse fate. At the end of World War II Kyoto featured high on the list of potential targets for the Atom Bomb, but was famously spared by American Defence Secretary, Henry Stimson, who recognized the city's supreme architectural and historical importance.