into being in the 1960s, this entrance was greatly enhanced, and a whole new, modern terminal structure was built behind the existing station, along with the Daimaru Department Store as a tenant facing the Yaesu Plaza, which covers the area of a portion of the former Sotobori moat.
The old entrance to Tokyo Station in Marunouchi
Tokyo Station was meant as a memorial for Japan’s victory over Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, and its main entrance was reserved for use solely by royalty. The station remained central in name only, for it was the terminus for trains from the south while the station at Ueno (to the north) was the terminus for trains from the north and east. Not until after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 could the two stations be linked, a possibility brought about by the earthquake’s destruction of buildings between the two termini. The completion in 1925 of the elevated Yamanote Line, which circles a major portion of central Tokyo, finally achieved this linkage.
The early future of Marunouchi looked brighter when the Tokyo city and Tokyo prefectural governments agreed to share a new building in the former daimyo quarter. The redbrick, Western-style structure was to arise in Marunouchi with the prefectural offices to the right while the city offices were to the left. Each had the image of its patron before its portion of the structure: Ota Dokan, the founder of an earlier Edo Castle in the mid-1400s, was placed before the city sector of the building. Tokugawa Ieyasu, the second founder of Edo in the 1590s stood before the prefectural offices. (A new, modern city hall was erected on the site in 1957 under the direction of the noted Japanese architect Kenzo Tange. As with its predecessor, it was to be razed after 1991 when the city hall moved further west to Shinjuku.)
The new station became the front door to the city, and gradually office buildings in Marunouchi, as London Town came to be known again, filled the Mitsubishi Meadows between the railroad and the Imperial Palace over the next 25 years. The life of modern buildings is frequently all too short, and Condor’s buildings were gradually replaced from 1930 on by newer and larger buildings. The last remnant of London Town, Mitsubishi Building #1, disappeared in 1967 in the post– World War II construction boom. The height limit of seven-to-eight floors (100 feet, or 45 meters) for the buildings in Marunouchi—out of respect to the adjacent Imperial Palace, which it would not be proper to overshadow—was to go the way of many such traditions after the 1950s, and today the financial and commercial headquarters of Japanese and international firms tower over the Imperial Palace grounds. Other traditions, such as the placing of an image of the Buddha under the roof of a building as protection against lightning, are no longer recognized.
1 TOKYO STATION
This tour of Marunouchi and Yurakucho begins at the western side of Tokyo Station, a bustling center whose daily train traffic could not have been envisioned by its original planners. Some 20 platforms above and below ground receive 3,000 train arrivals a day. A small park graces the area before the station, with the Tokyo Central Post Office on the left and a bus terminal to the right. A broad street leading from the plaza in front of the station to Hibiya-dori and the park before the Imperial Palace was created in 1926. The skyscraper that dominates the beginning of this boulevard is the Shin-marunouchi Building, completed in 2007 to replace the previous 1953 building of that name that occupied the same site. At 650 feet (198 meters) in height, this 38-story building, designed by British architect Sir Michael Hopkins, is currently the tallest structure in Chiyoda ward. It stands across the street from another skyscraper, the 2002, 37-story Marunouchi Building (often called Maru Biru), which was built to replace the grand old 1923 building of the same name, an eight-story building that survived both the 1923 earthquake and the bombing of 1945 but was unable to survive Tokyo’s 21st-century modernization. The two new Marunouchi buildings are packed with chic restaurants, fashionable shops, and high-end offices, and both represent the most modern face of Tokyo, as may seem fitting for one of the city’s financial districts.
Two streets along the boulevard bring one to Hibiya-dori as well as to the Babasakibori (Moat in Front of the Horse Grounds) and the beginning of the Imperial Palace Outer Gardens. (The moat’s strange name derives from a 1635 display of horsemanship presented before the shogun by a delegation from the then dependent kingdom of Korea.) When the capital was moved to Tokyo in 1868, three areas that were a portion of the castle grounds were gradually given to the public as parkland. These include the Imperial Palace Outer Garden along Hibiya-dori in front of the palace, the Imperial Palace East Garden, which contains the remains of the former Tokugawa castle, and Kita-no-maru Park, which was also part of the castle grounds. The Outer Garden has seen momentous events since it was separated from the Imperial Palace grounds. Here refugees from the destruction of the 1923 earthquake gathered, and here in August of 1945 a number of Japan’s officer corps committed seppuku (ceremonial suicide), their deaths supposedly serving as atonement for Japan losing its war in the Pacific. In the 1950s and 1960s, it became a place for public demonstrations against unpopular government decisions, many of these gatherings being anti-American in nature.
Hibiya-dori extends along the moat before the Outer Gardens and the palace, with a range of modern office buildings on its eastern side. As you turn to the left from the boulevard leading from Tokyo Station and head south on Hibiya-dori, the buildings you see between the railway and the Outer Garden cover not only the site of the Matsudaira daimyo mansion and ancillary buildings but as well the building in which the shogun’s chief Confucian advisor, Hayashi Razan, once held sway. Prior to the 19th century, the shogun’s fire department was located where the Meiji Life Insurance Building now stands, across from the bridge over the Babasaki Moat. Edo never boasted an organization that could fight the “flowers of Edo,” the outbreaks of fires that occurred all too frequently. Each daimyo and the shogun had men who could serve to protect their lord’s property, but the common citizen was on his own in his warren of wooden houses in the Low City when fires broke out. Unfortunately, not even the daimyo’s firefighters were always successful, and in the Long Sleeves Fire of 1657 even the shogun’s castle was destroyed when flames engulfed it. The shogun’s fire detachment can lay claim to fame even today on one score, however, for here at the location of the Meiji Life Insurance Building a son was born to one of the shogun’s firefighters. He forsook his father’s profession when he came of age, and Ando Hiroshige made his name through his woodblock prints instead of the quenching of flames.
Office buildings reflected in the Hibiya-bori Moat
2 IMPERIAL THEATER/IDEMITSU ART MUSEUM
One full street along Hibiya-dori beyond the bridge over the Babasaki Moat is the Kokusai Building, the International Building. Within it is the Imperial Theater (Teikoku Gekijo), which opened in 1911. It was the first major Western-style theater in Tokyo, and it was generously ornamented with marble and enhanced with splendid tapestries reminiscent of the richness of the Paris Opera House. This 1,900-seat theater was initially intended for concerts and recitals as well as for Kabuki, but it proved unsuitable for this latter art form. In more recent years, after a 1966 renovation when the stage and its equipment were updated and a restrained decor pervaded the hall of the playhouse, it has been the home to many popular contemporary American musicals. The theater occupies the first three floors of the Kokusai Building. The main entrance to the building is found on its south side, and here are elevators that may be taken to the ninth floor and the Idemitsu Art Museum, which contains one of the finest collections of Asian art in Japan. (The museum is open from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. [6:30 p.m. on Fridays]. It is closed Mondays and the New Year holidays. Entry ¥1,000.) Created by the president of the Idemitsu Oil Company, it has four large rooms that provide space for the display of the collection’s riches. The main room presents objects from the museum’s fine collection of Chinese ceramics, which range from prehistoric times through to the 18th century. Japanese ceramics are also well represented, with examples of Imari, Kutani, Seto, Nabeshima, and Kakiemon wares.
Another room in the museum shows selections from 16th- and 17th-century screens depicting episodes in The Tale of Genji, as well as prints with scenes of Kyoto and Edo before 1868.