Nihonbashi
Nihonbashi is a business district of Chūō, Japan which grew up around the bridge of the same name which has linked two sides of the Nihonbashi River at this site since the 17th century. The first wooden bridge was completed in 1603; the current bridge, designed by Tsumaki Yorinaka and constructed of stone on a steel frame, dates from 1911. The district covers a large area to the north and east of the bridge, reaching Akihabara to the north and the Sumida River to the east. Ōtemachi is to Yaesu and Kyobashi to the south. Nihonbashi, together with Kyobashi and Kanda, is the core of Shitamachi, the original downtown center of Edo-Tokyo, before the rise of newer secondary centers such as Shinjuku and Shibuya; the Nihonbashi district was a major mercantile center during the Edo period: its early development is credited to the Mitsui family, who based their wholesaling business in Nihonbashi and developed Japan's first department store, there. The Edo-era fish market in Nihonbashi was the predecessor of the Tsukiji and Toyosu Markets.
In years, Nihonbashi emerged as Tokyo's predominant financial district. The Nihonbashi bridge first became famous during the 17th century, when it was the eastern terminus of the Nakasendō and the Tōkaidō, roads which ran between Edo and Kyoto. During this time, it was known as Edobashi, or "Edo Bridge." In the Meiji era, the wooden bridge was replaced by a larger stone bridge. It is the point; the area surrounding the bridge was burned to the ground during the massive March 9-10, 1945 bombing of Tokyo, considered the single largest air raid in history. Despite careful maintenance and restoration, one area of the bridge still has scars burned into the stone from an incendiary bomb, it is one of the few traces left from the fire bombing. Nihonbashi was a ward of Tokyo City. In 1947, when the 35 wards of Tokyo were reorganized into 23, it was merged with Kyobashi to form the modern Chuo ward. Shortly before the 1964 Summer Olympics, an expressway was built over the Nihonbashi bridge, obscuring the classic view of Mount Fuji from the bridge.
In recent years, local citizens have petitioned the government to move this expressway underground. This plan was endorsed by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in 2005, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Tourism announced in 2017 that they would begin a detailed study of the project, with a goal of beginning construction following the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. If implemented, the construction costs are expected to total ¥500 billion. Bank of Japan Mitsukoshi and Takashimaya department stores COREDO NIHONBASHI Nihonbashi Mitsui Tower Mandarin Oriental, Tokyo Tokyo Stock Exchange Kilometre Zero for entire Japan Nihonbashi Akebono Brake Industry Bank of America Merrill Lynch Japan HSBC Japan KOSÉ Kureha Corporation Maruzen MODEC Nisshinbo Holdings Nomura Holdings Takashimaya Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ippon Doll WorksHakozakicho IBM Japan - IBM Hakozaki FacilityHoncho Daiichi-SankyoMuromachi Mitsui Fudosan Mitsukoshi Sembikiya Shinsei BankIn the late 1990s GeoCities Japan was headquartered in the Nihonbashi Hakozaki Building in Hakozakicho.
At one time Creatures Inc. had its headquarters in the Kawasakiteitoku Building in Nihonbashi. Japan-India Association Bakuro-yokoyama Station - Toei Shinjuku Line Hamachō Station - Toei Shinjuku Line Higashi-nihombashi Station - Toei Asakusa Line Kayabachō Station - Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line, Tokyo Metro Tōzai Line Kodemmachō Station - Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line Mitsukoshimae Station - Tokyo Metro Ginza Line, Tokyo Metro Hanzōmon Line Nihombashi Station - Toei Asakusa Line, Tokyo Metro Ginza Line, Tokyo Metro Tōzai Line Ningyōchō Station - Toei Asakusa Line, Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line Suitengūmae Station - Tokyo Metro Hanzōmon Line Bakurochō Station - JR Sōbu Line Shin-Nihombashi Station - JR Sōbu Line As the starting point for the five routes of the Edo period, Nihonbashi provided easy access to many parts throughout ancient Japan. Tōkaidō Nihonbashi - Shinagawa-jukuNakasendō Nihonbashi - Itabashi-jukuKōshū Kaidō Nihonbashi - Naitō ShinjukuŌshū Kaidō Nihonbashi - Hakutaku-jukuNikkō Kaidō Nihonbashi - Senju-juku
The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō
The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō, in the Hōeidō edition, is a series of ukiyo-e woodcut prints created by Utagawa Hiroshige after his first travel along the Tōkaidō in 1832. The Tōkaidō road, linking the shōgun's capital, Edo, to the imperial one, Kyōto, was the main travel and transport artery of old Japan, it is the most important of the "Five Roads" —the five major roads of Japan created or developed during the Edo period to further strengthen the control of the central shogunate administration over the whole country. Though the Hōeidō edition is by far the best known, The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō was such a popular subject that it led Hiroshige to create some 30 different series of woodcut prints on it, all different one from the other by their size, their designs or their number; the Hōeidō edition of the Tōkaidō is Hiroshige's best known work, the best sold ukiyo-e Japanese prints. Coming just after Hokusai's Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series, it established this new major theme of ukiyo-e, the landscape print, or fūkei-ga, with a special focus on "famous views".
These landscape prints took full advantage of the new possibilities offered by the Western representation of perspective, that Japanese artists had by now assimilated. Hiroshige's series met with full success, not only in Japan, but in Western countries; the Tōkaidō was one of the Five Routes constructed under Tokugawa Ieyasu, a series of roads linking the historical capital of Edo with the rest of Japan. The Tōkaidō connected Edo with the then-capital of Kyoto; the most important and well-traveled of these, the Tōkaidō travelled along the eastern coast of Honshū, thus giving rise to the name Tōkaidō. Along this road, there were 53 different post stations, which provided stables and lodging for travelers. In 1832, Hiroshige traveled the length of the Tōkaidō from Edo to Kyoto, as part of an official delegation transporting horses that were to be presented to the imperial court; the horses were a symbolic gift from the shōgun, presented annually in recognition of the emperor's divine status. The landscapes of the journey made a profound impression on the artist, he created numerous sketches during the course of the trip, as well as his return to Edo via the same route.
After his arrival at home, he began work on the first prints from The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō. He would produce 55 prints in the whole series: one for each station, plus one apiece for the starting and ending points; the first of the prints in the series was published jointly by the publishing houses of Hōeidō and Senkakudō, with the former handling all subsequent releases on its own. Woodcuts of this style sold as new for between 12 and 16 copper coins apiece the same price as a pair of straw sandals or a bowl of soup; the runaway success of The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō established Hiroshige as the most prominent and successful printmaker of the Tokugawa era. Hiroshige followed up on this series with The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō in cooperation with Keisai Eisen, documenting each of the post stations of the Nakasendō; the Hōeidō edition is properly titled Tōkaidō Gojūsan-tsugi no uchi. Besides the fifty-three stations themselves, the series includes one print for the departure, a final one, the 55th print, Kyoto, the imperial capital.
During his time in Paris, Vincent van Gogh was an avid collector of ukiyo-e, amassing with his brother a collection of several hundred prints purchased in the gallery of S. Bing; this collection included works from The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō, Van Gogh incorporated stylistic elements from his collection into his own work, such as bright colors, natural details, unconventional perspectives. In his personal correspondence, he stated, "all of my work is founded on Japanese art", described the Impressionists as "the Japanese of France". Architect Frank Lloyd Wright was an enthusiastic collector of Hiroshige's prints, including those of The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō. In 1906, he staged the first retrospective of Hiroshige's work at the Art Institute of Chicago, describing them in the exhibition catalog as some of "the most valuable contributions made to the art of the world". Two years he contributed elements of his collection to another exhibition of ukiyo-e at the Art Institute.
Wright designed the gallery space of the exhibit, which at that time was the largest display of its kind in history. Appreciating the prints on a professional level as well as an aesthetic one, Wright mined his prints for insights into the nature of designing structures, modifying damaged prints by adding lines and shadow in an effort to understand their operating principles. In 2012, British contemporary artist Carl Randall created paintings of the people and places along the contemporary Tokaido Highway, walking in the footsteps of the Japanese ukiyo-e printmaker Andō Hiroshige; the project resulted in a group of 15 paintings exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London as part of The 2013 BP Portrait Award exhibition, under the title "In the Footsteps of Hiroshige - The Tokaido Highway and Portraits of Modern Japan". The exhibition subsequently toured to The Aberdeen Art Gallery Scotland, formed his solo exhibition in Japan ‘Portraits from Edo to the Present’ at The Shizuoka City Tokaido Hiroshige Museum, where the paintings were exhibited alongside Hiroshige's original The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō woodblock prints.
The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō by Hiroshig
Fuchū-shuku
Fuchū-shuku was the nineteenth of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō. It is located in what is now part of the Aoi-ku area of Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan; the post station of Fuchū-shuku was a castle town for Sunpu Castle in the former Suruga Province. The classic ukiyo-e print by Andō Hiroshige from 1831–1834 depicts travellers crossing the Abe River to the west of the post station. A woman is being carried in a kago. Tōkaidō Ejiri-juku - Fuchū-shuku - Mariko-juku Carey, Patrick. Rediscovering the Old Tokaido:In the Footsteps of Hiroshige. Global Books UK. ISBN 1-901903-10-9 Chiba, Reiko. Hiroshige's Tokaido in Poetry. Tuttle. ISBN 0-8048-0246-7 Taganau, Jilly; the Tokaido Road: Travelling and Representation in Edo and Meiji Japan. RoutledgeCurzon. ISBN 0-415-31091-1 Media related to Fuchu-juku at Wikimedia Commons
Suruga Province
Suruga Province was an old province in the area, today the central part of Shizuoka Prefecture. Suruga bordered on Izu, Sagami, Tōtōmi provinces, its abbreviated form name was Sunshū. Suruga was one of the original provinces of Japan established in the Nara period under the Taihō Code; the original capital of the province was located in what is now Numazu, which had the Kokubun-ji and the Ichinomiya of the province. Under the Engishiki classification system, Suruga was ranked as a "major country", was governed by a Kuni no miyatsuko and under the ritsuryō system was classed as a "middle country" In a 680 AD cadastral reform, the districts forming Izu Province were administratively separated from Suruga, the provincial capital was relocated to the right bank of the Abe River in what is now Shizuoka City. Records of Suruga during the Heian period are sparse, but during the Kamakura period, Suruga was under direct control of the Hōjō clan. With the development of the Kamakura shogunate came increased traffic on the Tōkaidō road connecting Kamakura with Kyoto.
The province came under the control of the Imagawa clan from the early Muromachi period through much of the Sengoku period. The Imagawa made efforts to introduce the customs and rituals of the kuge aristocracy to their capital. However, after Imagawa Yoshimoto was defeated by Oda Nobunaga at the Battle of Okehazama, the province taken by Takeda Shingen of Kai; the Takeda were in turn defeated by Tokugawa Ieyasu, master of Mikawa and Tōtōmi. After the Siege of Odawara, Toyotomi Hideyoshi forced the Tokugawa to exchange their domains for the provinces of the Kantō region, reassigned Sunpu Castle to one of his retainers, Nakamura Kazuichi. However, after the defeat of the Toyotomi at the Battle of Sekigahara, Tokugawa Ieyasu recovered his former domains, made Sunpu Castle his home after he formally retired from the position of Shōgun. During the Edo period, Suruga prospered due to its location on the Tōkaidō, numerous post towns developed. For defensive purposes, the Tokugawa shogunate forbade the construction of bridges on the major rivers of Suruga Province, which further led to town development on the major river crossings.
During this period, the major urban center of Sunpu remained a tenryō territory, administered directly the Shōgun by the Sunpu jōdai, several smaller feudal domains were assigned to close fudai retainers. Following the defeat of the Tokugawa shogunate during the Boshin War of the Meiji Restoration, the last Tokugawa shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu returned to Suruga in 1868 to rule the short-lived Shizuoka Domain until the abolition of the han system in 1871 by the new Meiji government. Suruga was subsequently merged with the neighboring provinces of Tōtōmi and Izu to form modern Shizuoka Prefecture. At the same time, the province continued to exist for some purposes. For example, Suruga is explicitly recognized in treaties in 1894 between Japan and the United States and between Japan and the United Kingdom. In the mid-19th century, Suruga was one of the most mapped provinces in Japan. Shizuoka Prefecture Abe District – absorbed Udo District on April 1, 1896. Japan encyclopedia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
ISBN 978-0-674-01753-5. Historical and Geographic Dictionary of Japan. Tokyo: Librarie Sansaisha. OCLC 77691250 Suruga on "Edo 300 HTML" Media related to Suruga Province at Wikimedia Commons Murdoch's map of provinces, 1903 "View of Entire Suruga Region" from 19th century
Kanagawa-juku
Kanagawa-juku was the third of the fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō. It was located in Kanagawa-ku in the present-day city of Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, it was close to Kanagawa Port. Many of its historical artifacts were destroyed by the Great Kantō earthquake and bombings during World War II. Kanagawa-juku was established parallel to Kanagawa Port and it flourished as part of the route that goods traveled on the way to Sagami Province. Though the area had been designated as the place for the port to be opened, it was opened on the opposite shore in what is now Naka-ku, Yokohama. After the country was opened to international trade, the center of commerce was moved to the opposite shore as well. In 1889, the town of Kanagawa was established, it merged into Yokohama in 1901. Tōkaidō Kawasaki-juku - Kanagawa-juku - Hodogaya-juku Media related to Kanagawa-juku at Wikimedia Commons
Honjin
Honjin is the Japanese word for an inn for government officials located in post stations during the part of the Edo period. Honjin were places from which generals directed battles and, were fleeting in nature. However, as commanders began to transform the honjin into temporary lodgings during battle and travel, honjin came to be places where daimyō and other representatives of the shogunate, including hatamoto, etc. were allowed to stay during their travels. Many of the honjin were personal residences of village and town leaders; as such, they received official designations from the government and expanded their residences to include walls and other features. Because of their cooperation, the owners of the honjin gained various special rights. General travelers, regardless of money, were not able to stay at honjin. Waki-honjin referred to as "sub-honjin," are similar in structure and operation to, but smaller than, honjin; the rules of operation were are different. When two official traveling parties are staying in the same post station, the more powerful of the two stayed in the main honjin.
The major difference, though, is that general travelers were able to stay at the waki-honjin, if they had enough status or money. The honjin or waki-honjin of the following post stations have either been preserved or restored and are now open to be viewed by the public: Tōkaidō Maisaka-juku Futagawa-juku Kusatsu-juku Nakasendō Okegawa-juku Wada-shuku Shimosuwa-juku Ōta-juku Unuma-juku Kōshū Kaidō Hino-shuku Ohara-shuku Other Routes Matsumaedō's Arikabe-shuku Mito Kaidō's Toride-shuku Saigoku Kaidō's Kōriyama-shuku San'yōdō's Yakage-shuku Yamato Kaidō's Nate-shuku Toiyaba Hatago Kichinyado Chaya Kōsatsu
Sanjō Ōhashi
Sanjō Ōhashi is a bridge in Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. It spans the Kamo River as part of Sanjō-dōri, it is well-known because it served as the ending location for journeying on both the Nakasendō and the Tōkaidō. It is unclear when this bridge was first built, but there are records of Toyotomi Hideyoshi orders for it to be repaired in 1590, as well as one of the original giboshi; the current concrete bridge, which includes two lanes for driving and a walking path on either side, was built in 1950. Nakasendō & Tōkaidō Ōtsu-juku - Sanjō Ōhashi Media related to Sanjō Ōhashi at Wikimedia Commons
Media related to Ōtsu-juku at Wikimedia Commons
