the tokaido—scenes from edo to meiji eras · the tokaido—scenes from edo to meiji eras jilly...

17Japan Railway & Transport Review • September 1997

Impact of Railways on Japanese Society & Culture

Copyright © 1997 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

Featu res

The Tokaido—Scenes from Edo to Meiji Eras

Jilly Traganou

Infrastructure

In the Edo Era (1600–1868), the Tokaidoroad was the most important route in Ja-pan, linking Kyoto, the imperial capital,with Edo, the seat of the TokugawaShogunate. As the name Tokaido (east-ern sea route) implies, the road runs eastfrom Kyoto to Edo. Kamigata (upper re-gion) was the district surrounding theemperor’s palace in Kyoto. Therefore,during the Edo Era, people still went ‘up’(nobori) to Kyoto, and ‘down’ (kudari) toEdo. At the Meiji Restoration when realpolitical power was returned to the MeijiEmperor, he moved his Imperial Palaceto Tokyo, set up a new central govern-ment there and officially transferred thecapital from Kyoto to Edo. After thischange in hierarchy, people travelled ‘up’to Tokyo and ‘down’ to Kyoto.In the Edo Era, travel in Japan was regu-lated by the Tokugawa Shogunateth rough the Goka ido (Toka ido ,Nakasendo, Koshu Kaido, Nikko Kaido,

Oshu Kaido) road system. The Gokaidowere initially developed to meet the mili-tary needs of the government to facili-tate movement of officials, armies, andpost. Despite the travel restrictions, theinternal stability and expanding economypermitted large numbers of commonersto use the roads. Consequently, by theearly 19th century, the emergence of amiddle class, composed of lower-classsamurai and rising merchants, coincidedwith an extensive travel boom.Post-stations (shukuba) offering lodgingand other facilities were establishedalong the roads at equal distances.Middle stages and tea houses betweenpost-stations facilitated shorter journeys.Travellers were controlled at checkpoints(sekisho) usually positioned at naturalbarriers on the roads (such as Hakone andArai). The road infrastructure includedbridges, river crossings, markers at everyri (3927 m) and road maintenance, aswell as paving and roadside trees. Trav-elling was confined to foot for common-ers and to horses (which had to be

changed at each post s tat ion) orpalanquins for high-status travellers.There were ferry services at water cross-ings (Ise Bay, Lake Hamana), but travel-lers had to hire porters at large rivers likeOi and Abe. The trip from Edo to Kyototook about 12 days at an average speedof 25 miles a day.

Flourishing of Gokaido

The flourishing of the Gokaido waslargely supported by the alternate resi-dence system (Sankin kotai) whereby feu-dal lords (daimyo) were compelled totravel annually to Edo, where they kepttheir families and residences. The for-mal travelling procedure required manyfollowers and a display of wealth dem-onstrating their high status. Various cat-egories of inns (honjin, waki-honjin,yadoya) were built at each station to ac-commodate the daimyo processions.Many local merchants and carriers wereemployed to serve them. Consequently,

Figure 1 Comparison of Tokaido Road (Edo Era) and Tokaido Railway (Meiji Era, 1889)

18 Japan Railway & Transport Review • September 1997



Figure 2 Tokaido Route Pictograph, 1716, showing Fuchu or Sunpu (today’s Shizuoka)

the regions close to the roads benefitedeconomically from the flow of peopleand trade. The Gokaido, and especiallythe Tokaido, became sites of social di-versity, where people from differentclasses and regions met and saw the west-ern novelties being carried from Nagasakito Edo.In 1691, Engelbert Kaempfer describedthe Tokaido (Fig. 1) as, ‘more crowdedthan the publik (sic) streets in any (of) themost populous towns in Europe’. TheTokaido had 53 post-stations, many ofwhich were parts of castle towns, templecities, or port cities. They had the high-est average population (3950) in relationto the other roads and had many touristfacilities. Franz von Siebold, a Dutchdoctor, remarked in 1826, ‘Except for asmall portion of the Tokaido which passesthrough a mountainous region, the roadconsists of almost a continuous line oftowns, villages and teahouses.’ TheTokaido had fewer mountainous partscompared to the other roads. TheNakasendo also connected Edo andKyoto via a longer inland route, that was

scenic but rough. Imperial envoys usedthe two routes alternately.

Floating worldThe Tokaido became the main artery fortravel by the daimyo fulfilling their Sankinkotai obligations and for commoners, be-cause it was less dangerous. However,many parts of the Tokaido were still preyto unpredictable factors, such as badweather, floods, and thieves. TheTokaido’s safety and especially flourish-ing amusement areas around the post sta-tions increased its popularity in the massculture of the period. An entertainmentindustry (including souvenir shops, teahouses, public baths and brothels) devel-oped along the route to alleviate the fa-tigue of the journey. As a result, theTokaido was identified in the collectivememory as a main part of the ‘floatingworld’ (ukiyo), a culture based on travel-ling and constant pursuit of life’s transientpleasures. The flowering of the gokaidoduring the Edo Era became a major themeof the popular arts. The Tokaido’s post-stations were added to the list of ‘famous

places’, meisho (previously associatedwith spiritual matters), as sites for escape,illusion and entertainment. This attitudeindicates a remarkable attention by thesocially-excluded and politically-dissat-isfied merchant and master-less samuraiclasses to the periphery as a possibleplayground.

Modernization

In the Meiji Era (1868–1912), the coun-try officially entered the modern age withthe opening up to the West and the trans-fer of the capital from Kyoto to Tokyo,following the Meiji Restoration. First,there was a radical shift in public atten-tion to the main urban centres, particu-larly Tokyo. Second, Western importedinfrastructure, and especially railways, al-tered people’s concepts of space andtime. Both had major effects on the cen-tre-periphery relationship, and alteredperceptions from the illusory to the fac-tual.The Tokaido Railway was completed in

19Japan Railway & Transport Review • September 1997Copyright © 1997 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

1889 almost parallel to the route ofTokaido road (Fig. 1). The feudal roadsystem of travel control was abolished in1869. The same year, the Meiji govern-ment agreed to proceed with railway con-struction as a means of modernization,centralization of power and market uni-fication following the recommendationof Sir Harry Parkes, (1825–1885) the Brit-ish minister to Japan. Messrs OkumaShigenobu(1) and Ito Hirobumi started theconstruct ion between Tokyo andYokohama, and Sato Masayoshi and OnoTomogoro started surveying the route forthe trunk line. In their report to the gov-ernment, they concluded that it wouldbe more useful to construct the trunkroute along the Nakasendo instead of theTokaido to promote development of themountainous region. Their proposed in-land route also had the approval of themilitary, who were afraid that a coastalrailway would be vulnerable to foreignattack. The Japanese military saw the rail-way as an increase in the power of for-eigners—’an abominable alien machine’in ‘the land of the gods.’

Opening of Tokaido Railway

Although the Nakasendo route was ac-cepted by both the government and mili-tary, as the work proceeded, they realizedthat the rugged terrain would cause muchhigher costs and longer construction. Fi-nally, it was abandoned in 1886 for a newroute, almost parallel to the old Tokaidoroad. Figure 1 shows the deviations ofthe railway from the road, usually as aresult of mountainous geography. Theroute followed the Tokaido road untilAtsuta except at Hakone Pass, where ittook the easier path via Ashigara (Oiso,Kozu, Gotemba, Numazu), skipping thepost-stations at Odawara, Hakone andMishima. From Atsuta, it followed theancient Mino Way to the famousSekigahara Pass. There, it turned southalong the Biwa Plain, crossing the south-ern tip of Lake Biwa via a new bridgeover the Seto. The post-stations on theTokaido road from Kuwana to Ishibe werenot included in the railway route, whichrejoined the Tokaido road again at

Kusatsu. The parts missed by the linewere soon connected by private lines thatbecame very popular, creating the so-called ‘railway mania’ at the turn of thecentury.Opening ceremonies for the first sectionbetween Shimbashi (now Shiodome) andYokohama (now Sakuragicho) took placeon 14 October 1872. Service started be-tween Osaka and Kobe on 11 May 1874,between Kyoto and Osaka on 6 Febru-ary 1877; and between Kyoto and Otsuin July 1880 after completion of theOsakayama Tunnel (28 June). NagahamaStation (a national treasure since 1958—JRTR 9, pp. 28–29) was built in 1882 asa part of the line, and transport betweenNagahama and Otsu was via ship. Thismade a major contribution to the localeconomy, but it went into decline afterrealignment of the railway that excludedthe two stations from the route. The en-tire trunk line between Shimbashi andKobe was inaugurated on 1 July 1889with a journey time of 20 hours and 5minutes.

Figure 3 Tokaido Pictograph showing the same place as Fig. 2, 1690




Negative reactionsThe railway construction created variousnegative reactions on the part of the post-stations who saw it as a threat to theirprosperity, and Okazaki, Hakone andother post-station towns refused to buildnearby railway stations. Travel contin-ued along the old Tokaido road while therailway was under construction. At thesame time, the abolition of the travel re-strictions gave rise to private businesses,such as land transportation companies,that were now allowed to use horse car-riages. A company called Rikuun MotoGaisha (Land Transport Co.) was estab-lished in Tokyo in 1872 and it had mergedwith all the local transport companieswithin 2 years. It handled baggage andbecame affiliated with 2000 local inns,forming a powerful network facilitatingroad travel. However, completion of therailway resulted in decline of both thepost-stations and the land transportationnetwork.

Mapping

In the Edo Era, numerous prints and mapsof the Tokaido road were produced, ei-ther as administrative tools or land sur-veys for the authorities, or as guides andsouvenirs for travellers. The originalmaps prepared by the Shogunate wereoften very accurate, as demonstrated bythe official Tokaido bunken nobe ezu(Tokaido Route Pictograph) drawn in1716 (Fig. 2). It is an accurate surveydrawn in a consistent manner on a plane,but including many exaggerated icono-graphic symbols. These symbols denoteeither architectural typologies (shrines,temples, castles, inns), topographical fea-tures, or other important elements of theroad infrastructure, such as bridges anddistance markers (ichirizuka). These 1-rimarkers were important for travelling andmap reading.The Tokaido bunken ezu (Fig. 3), drawn

in 1690, is an example of a pictographicmap. Although drawn in a panoramicstyle containing vivid details of life alongthe roadside, it does not lack precisionas a map. It derives from a governmentmap of 1651 drawn to a scale of 1:12,000and contains almost all the ri-markers andcardinal compass directions. It was used

as a travel guide containing practical in-formation regarding porterage fees andinn location and prices, to facilitatetravel.

Control and practicesComparison of Figs. 2 and 3 shows thatthere was no strong distinction between

Figure 4 Railway Map, 1898 (detail)

Osaka Kyoto

Yokohama

ShinagawaShimbashi


the ‘high and low’ cultures in the Edo Era.Artists of the ‘floating world’ were oftencommissioned to produce maps by theauthorities, and their distinct decorativestyle penetrated even official maps. Al-though both maps are drawn in a pan-oramic way they differ in their spaceperception. Fig. 2 is a view of space ‘fromabove’ while Fig. 3 shows space per-ceived as a ‘field of practices’, as definedby Michel de Certeau. While Fig. 2 aimsto describe stable spatial elements, andfunctions as an active device of surveyand control, Fig. 3 describes the route un-folding through time, and offers a narra-tion of events and fables. Therefore,while in the former, Tokaido is perceivedas a spatial territory, in the latter, Tokaidois perceived as a temporal entity, deriv-

ing from the collective mythology of theera and from the viewpoint of ordinarytravellers. It is worth noticing that Mt.Fuji is represented in the latter more thanonce—at its actual location, and at eachpoint from where it is visible.

Space compressionThe official maps of the Meiji Era aremore accurate than their predecessors;they follow Western methods of repre-sentation and measurement that had al-ready been used in major cartographicprojects of the Edo Era, undertakenmainly by Ino Tadataka. By contrast,Meiji railway maps developed in a dif-ferent way. A good example is theTetsudo senro chisen ritei hyo railwaymap of 1898 (Fig. 4). This map still con-

tains topographical elements of the EdoEra, such as Nihonbashi Bridge in Tokyo,Mt Fuji, etc. However, Tokyo is notnamed in the same distinct manner asEdo used to be, but is rather a conglom-eration of different stations: Shimbashi,Shinagawa, etc. This shows the initiallack of awareness of Tokyo’s centrality,making a sharp contrast with the monu-mentality of Tokyo Central Station, builtat the beginning of the Taisho Era (1912–1926).But most importantly, in this map we seea tangible example of the spatial com-pression, or geographic distortion, pro-duced by the railway network. Althoughthe diagrammatic perception of spacecan be explained through the mechani-zation of the railway and the logistic na-

Figure 5 Sugoroku Board Game, Meiji Era




sition inside the travel network. Thebroader cultural environments withinwhich such spatial perceptions operatedare described below.

IllusionThe misemono shows of the Edo Era, ex-hibited many foreign novelties reachingEdo via the Tokaido road from NagasakiPort (for many years, the only port openedto trade with the West). Optical devices(kiki), such as telescopes, microscopes,or peepshow boxes, opened up a newfield of vision, operating in a differentcontext from that of ‘western scientificgaze’ rooted in close and objective ob-servation. As the historian TimothyScreech describes, Edo’s ‘sunken pictures’(kubomi-e) plunged the viewer down-

ward into the recesses of their illusionistdepths instead of expanding the horizonof the viewer as required by the westernuse of perspective. In the Edo Era, artwas still under the influence of the ‘mindlandscapes’ of Yamato (ancient Japanese)culture, and did not intend to reproducephysical or man-made territory in a real-istic manner, but instead reproduced theenergy or the idea of the place.For Edo commoners, ‘place’ was a fieldof illusion, rather than of observation.Depiction of space followed the older li-terati system of the ‘famous places’(meisho) adding new meisho around Edo,Tokaido, etc. (Fig. 6) It is important tonote that a condition of meisho art pre-sumes travel to significant places to viewseasonally changing natural phenomena

ture of the chart, it would be a mistaketo associate such a phenomenon exclu-sively with the mechanics of mobility.On the contrary, this spatial compressionis reminiscent of the travel guide mapsor the game sugoroku (Fig. 5), which issimilar to the backgammon board game,and which became very popular after theEdo Era. In these pictures, a diagram-matic, almost fragmented description ofspace contrasts with the holistic topo-graphic representation of the previoustwo maps. The frame sequence of im-portant places is more important than thespace continuity, the exact geographicallocation, or the physical formation of theterritory as a whole. Space is presentedas an enumeration of famous spots, withattention given only to their relevant po-

Figure 6 Tokaido Meisho, Oi River, Edo Era


or historically important spots. Therefore,it is apparent that space in meisho is con-sidered to be ‘movement-oriented space’,a space to be discovered through mobil-ity and travel. As architectural historianInoue Mitsuo explains, this type of spacediffers radically from the ‘geometricspace’ which can be clearly conceivedthrough a fixed viewpoint. However, the‘travel boom’ of the Edo Era, as well asthe secularization of the arts, graduallyturned the attention to less spiritual sub-ject matters. The meisho taking the formof guide books (Edo meishoki, Tokaidomeishoki, etc.) or print series, aimed toprovide practical information and a‘manga-like’ (cartoon) depiction of fablesand episodes along the way. However,the text of these guide books provides amere enumeration and an imprecise de-scription of the meisho, that seem to havebeen repeatedly attributed the same typesof virtues—as Edo-banashi warned,‘Once you’ve seen one famous place,you’ve seen ‘em all’.

Attempts at realismAt the Meiji Restoration, the attention ofthe modern state shifted from the mar-ginal to the central, from the illusory tothe specific. The introduction of the rail-way was a breakthrough in many ways.It established not only one of the mostpowerful systematic grids of discipline,but also carried the spectacle of moder-nity through the phantasmagoria of itssight and sound. Westernization, mod-ernization and progress were identifiedin a remarkably effective manner throughsteel and the steam engine. As the news-paper Far East wrote in 1872, ‘Until allJapan is so closely united by the ironroads ... prosperity and wealth may in-crease, and the country become so com-pact and homogenous that it shallbecome also very great and powerful!’The illusions of the optical devices thatfascinated the masses in the Edo Era werereplaced in the Meiji Era by the three-dimensional, realistic apparatus of rail-way travel; the viewpoint moved from thebird’s eye view to eye level. Not onlythe image of the locomotives, but also

the station buildings (Fig. 7) excited theMeiji public imagination. Shimbashi andYokohama stations—the first in Japan—were built identically by the Americanarchitect R. P. Bridgens, one of 700 or soyatoi (foreign experts) working for theMeiji government. Shimbashi Stationwas described as, ‘a plain and unassum-ing two-story edifice of wood faced withstone’, and heralded by the Western pressas, ‘the soundest and most testily con-structed building’ and ‘far superior to anyother buildings in Yedo’. As we can seein the iconography of the period, theTokaido railway stations—all built inwestern style—appear as gathering placesfor foreign and local travellers, and alsoas major interfaces with the new travelmode—trains, rickshaws and horse car-riages are all represented in the views.The graphic arts were late in catching upwith the new perceptions developedthrough the speed of railway travel. Theirsubjects included mostly static views ofrailway stations, or the passage of the lo-comotive through the countryside. Al-though there were variations on the

Figure 7 Shinagawa Station, 1872

Original owned by NIPPON EXPRESS CO.,LTD




Figure 8 Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido Road, Oi River, 1832

overtones, there were no attempts to rep-resent the landscape altered by speed.This task had to be undertaken by an-other form, which requires a similar tem-poral development as the railwaytrip—the railway songs.

Railway songsIn 1900, the railway songs (tetsudoshoka), written by the scholar OwadaTakeki, became very popular amongyoung Japanese children and teenagers.These songs, which comprised a gram-mar school textbook, helped childrenlearn historical and geographical factsstrengthening their national conscious-ness. However, Meiji citizens, still cap-tivated by the Edo pursuit of illusionistescape, saw railway travel as a new type

of visual illusion.

Like pictures in the turning light (zoet-rope)Distance passes as we watch

The railway songs of the period are stillunder the influence of Edo’s regional ge-ography, or the perception of the land asmarked by historical or mythologicalevents. Additionally, they cannot dis-guise the confusion of place and timerelated with railway travel.

We can see Shinagawa port and whitewaves and mountains over the ocean.Are these mountains in Kazusa or inBoshu?

Views changeReturning to the visual arts, the Tokaidopost-stations were immortalized in theEdo and Meiji Eras, respectively, inHiroshige’s Tokaido gojusan tsugi (Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido Road) (Fig.8) and Kamei Takejiro’s Kaiko Tokaidogojusan eki shinkei (True views of theTokaido) (Fig. 9).Hiroshige’s famous Tokaido series (pub-lished by Hoeido) was painted after hisfirst trip along the Tokaido in 1832, onwhich he followed the shogun’s annualconvoy delivering horses to Kyoto as agift to the emperor. Although his picturesare greatly inspired by this trip, his inter-est in landscape representation is artis-tic, rather than informative. In this sense,it is not surprising to find that the influ-


ences of previous art (such as Tokaidomeisho) or literal descriptions likeTokaidochu Hizakurige (Tokaido onFoot), are sometimes stronger thanHiroshige’s reality (compare Fig. 7 to Fig.5). In the same way, there are frequentgeographical distortions and seasonalinconsistencies that break the temporallinearity of the route. All these prove theartist’s interest in conveying the atmo-sphere of the ‘floating world’, rather thanoffering a realistic representation of theroad.In contrast, Kamei Takejiro’s True viewsof the Tokaido in the Meiji Era are thelonely views of Takejiro himself, whodied shortly after he finished his journeyon foot. The lithographs, based on hispaintings, but printed in 1892 after hisdeath, illustrate the decline of the poststations just before the completion of therailway. We can see old and new meansof travelling (horses and rickshaws in thecountryside; trains in the Tokyo area); thenew Okabe Tunnel in Shizuoka Prefec-ture; telegraph poles and wires across thecountry; and several night views that con-vey the feeling of an abandoned coun-

tryside. These true views (shinkei) areradically different from the illusionistscenes presented by Hiroshige, 60 yearsearlier. But what is essential in under-standing these diametrically differentviews is the change of the individual sub-ject—who is producing and consumingsuch images—during the transition fromthe Edo to Meiji Era.

Subject and Society

In the Edo images of the Tokaido, we seestrong influences from the travel litera-ture of the t ime, as for exampleTokaidochu Hizakurige (1802–22) bycomic novelist Jippensha Ikku. As thebook preface states, one main aspect ofthe Tokaido’s interest is ‘the songs of thecarriers about the hills’, ‘the songs of thepostboys about the sparrows in the bam-boo’, and ‘the one-night love-traffic of theroads’. Therefore, it is not the landscapethat is chosen to be viewed in its entiretyas a natural form, but the way it is re-flected through human interaction. Andmost importantly, the Tokaido attracts the

attention as a microcosm of man-made‘objects mixed together, as the goods inthe shop of a general dealer’.The heroes in the stories of this periodwere not specific characters or autobio-graphical referents but rather comic fig-ures, such as Kita and Yaji in TokaidochuHizakurige. On the course of the jour-ney, Kita and Yaji not only forget impor-tant details of their family background,but also the specificities of their charac-ters seem to be unimportant for the de-velopment of the story. This novel iswritten with little attention to accuracyor detail of the physical surroundings.What about the relationship between therailway establishment as a symbolicstructure and the Meiji citizen? The citystations are now accessible to all, regard-less of social status—a notable develop-ment from the space division and classsegregation of the Edo Era. As NagaiKafu’s hero confesses in Kocha no yoru(Tearoom Evening) (1911), ‘The waitingroom in the station is very comfortableand you can feel at home. There, youdon’t need to order beer or tea, as anobligation to the waitress and you don’tneed to get angry, while waiting for therest of your order for 5 minutes. Some-times, I feel very stressed in my study-room and I cannot concentrate.... Inthese cases, I take a light book and I goto this waiting room and I sit on theleather chair.... And in these wide rooms,there are so many people from differentsocial classes, from the elite to the poor.And there, sometimes I think that I cansee the drama of their life’.Nagai’s hero in the above passage is atangible example of the establishment ofthe ‘inner self’ within the framework ofmodernity. In a society still captured inthe illusionist techniques of escape thatflourished in the Edo Era, the self-disci-pline required by the new state is a dra-matic experience affecting directly bothsociety and the individual. The stress onindividual development as the founda-

Figure 9 True Views of the Tokaido, Oi River 1891–92




tion of the modern state results in a fun-damental division of space between theprivate and public realm.Even the humorist views (Fig. 10) ofGeorges Bigot(2) cannot hide the station as‘a dramatic stage’. However, although therailway was open to everyone, the func-tion of the station could neither create thesense of escape from the social distinction,nor easily erase feudal manners and norms.

Figure 10 Bigot’s Cartoons of Travel on Tokaido Railway, 1897

Space

In the ‘moving culture’ of the Edo Era,the city, periphery, and travel merged intoone. For the 40% of the Edo populationwho were temporary male inhabitantsrelated to the Sankin kotai system, the citywas a realm of constant displacements.In the popular arts of that period, Edo wasidentified with places of pleasure, amuse-

ment, and commerce, at the city bor-ders—the banks of the River Sumida, orthe temple yards. As J. Elissonas hasnoted, ‘The city was viewed in essenceas a mosaic produced by...accidental ar-rangement of famous places, with onlythe loosest connecting links betweenthem. In short, the famous places weretreated as individual sites and not as partsof an integrated urban complex’.The idea and actual fact of the city as afleeting entity giving privileges to themarginal and illusory instead of the or-derly, could not easily be accepted bythe Meiji government, who saw moraldanger for the new society. Not onlywere these places of ‘ill repute’, but theybrought the ‘extraordinary’ within dan-gerous proximity of normal daily life.They were gradually eliminated througha number of plans, such as establishmentof modern public parks (Ueno Park) andaxial avenues (Ginza). These proposalspromoted specific public attitudes asso-ciated with new functions and meanings.The newly established city authority wasequated with new organs of control, suchas City Hall, the post offices, railway sta-tions and banks. These new institutionswere symbolized by specific typologies,that became established in the collectivememory through their visual distinctionas architectural forms. In this sense, thecity took on a new identity of formal,Westernized norms, rather than the in-formal and peripheral norms of the EdoEra. This was the foundation of the newurban space and state authority.When Tokyo became the official capital,the direction of terms such as nobori (go-ing up) or jokyo (going up to the capital)changed from Kyoto to Tokyo. However,with abolition of the Sankin kotai system,there was a considerable reduction inTokyo’s population from over 1 millionto 670,000. The return to the provincesre-established the idea of the home town,or the city-as-home. Shortly afterwards,economic hardship in the provinces and

Bon voyage (The Archives of Japanese Cartoon History)

Drinks service (The Archives of Japanese Cartoon History)


Jilly Traganou

Jilly Traganou is a Greek architect presently on a Japan Foundation Fellowship at Kyoto University,

which she also attended on a Japan Ministry of Education scholarship from 1991 to 1993. She is

currently a PhD candidate at the Department of Architecture at the University of Westminister (UK)

researching the transformations of the Tokaido from a highway to the Megalopolis. Her publica-

tions include, The Fireworks of Edo, Architronic (http://www.saed.kent.edu/Architronic/v6n1/), 1997.

the promotion of Tokyo as a place of ‘civi-lization and enlightenment’ created ex-tensive migration to Tokyo from all overthe country. After the Russo-JapaneseWar, inflation and recession led to large-scale movement of farmers to Tokyo. Be-tween 1898 and 1907, inward migrationnumbered about 50,000 each year, mark-ing the beginning of an intensive urban-ization. Tokyo became a place ofprogress and opportunity—a place tostudy or to work. Conversely, the prov-inces were seen as places of tradition andwere analogous to the past; the railwayformed the link between the two.

Time

The literature of the Meiji Era clearlyshows this temporal division between fu-ture and past, in comparison to the looserperception of time characterizing Edo.The Meiji landscape is rendered withemotional overtones for the first time. InIe (The Family) by Shimazaki Toson, wesee how the alienating life of Tokyo soonmakes Tokyo’s new residents link theirhometowns with sentiments of rusticity.These memories of unity with nature andpeaceful life are gradually dissociatedfrom the hardships of country life, the ini-tial reason for the escape to Tokyo. There-fore, the periphery became the repositoryfor sentiments that could not be investedin the western novelties of Tokyo.The efficiency and low cost of the rail-ways transformed the idea of mobility.The aimless, time-consuming journey ofthe Edo Era, was replaced by travel forspeci f ic reasons—higher c lassessightseeing, factory girls working, farm-ers’ migrating, etc. Each region assumeda specific character—Kyoto for culture,Hakone and Atami for holidays for thehigher classes and foreigners, Kuwanaand Yokkaichi for new industry.The excesses of Edo were restrained bythe Meiji state bringing new discipline.

In contrast to the Edo Era, the Meiji sys-tematization of western technologyfavouring productivity and progress, re-stricted pleasure to specific times andspaces. The railway, the military, the fac-tory and the school, established the func-tional division of time and space,necessary for modernization. The clockat the railway station and the precisionof the timetable were instrumental in dis-ciplining Meiji public spaces.

Transformations

In this respect, the railway was an im-portant link, bridging the divisions ofspace, time, and function required by theMeiji system. The new national hierar-chy divided the country into places ofproduction and industrialization, andplaces of consumption and entertain-ment. The emotional distinction betweenplaces of the future and progress on theone side and places of the past and rus-ticity on the other soon developed intothe commercial rhetoric of the furusato(nostalgia for the hometown).The Tokaido Railway in the Meiji Erapaved the way to urban and economicdevelopment of the region; the patternwas repeated again with the building ofthe Tokaido Shinkansen in 1964, and thegrowth of the Tokaido megalopolis in the1970s. It is questionable whether theselater developments overcame the previ-ous dichotomies or managed to defeat thegravitation of Tokyo.But it is through the intensive mobility of

the bustling megalopolis that contempo-rary Japanese stations emerged as a ma-jor typology of Japanese space.Contemporary stations mingle togetherfacilities of consumption and places ofrelease forming a network of multi-func-tional urban nodes. This is where thesystemic grid of modern infrastructuresparallels the transitory diversions of Edospace. �

Note(1) Japanese names in this article follow Japanese us-

age with family name first.(2) Georges Bigot, see page 26.

Figure notesFig. 1 Author; Fig. 2 Reproduced from Tokaido

Bunken ezu, Vol. 7, Tokyo Bijutsu, 1980, original

owned by Tokyo National Museum; Fig. 3 Repro-

duced from Tokaido bunken ezu, Chuo Koron

Bijutsu Shuppan, 1960, original owned by Tokyo

National Museum; Fig. 4 Original owned by Tenri

University, Sankokan Museum; Fig. 5 Reproduced

from Meiji Taisho zushi, Chikuma Shobo Publish-

ing Co., Ltd.,1978, original owned by Tokyo Metro-

politan Central Library; Fig. 6 Reproduced from

Toka ido me i sho zuka i , N ihon Zu i sh i t su

Taiseikankokai, 1928, original owned by Faculty of

Engineering Architecture Department Library, Kyoto

University; Fig. 7 Reproduced from Meiji Taisho

zushi, Chikuma Shobo Publishing Co., Ltd.,1978,

original owned by Nippon Express Co., Ltd.; Fig. 8

Reproduced from Hiroshige’s Fifty-Three Stations of

the Tokaido Road, exhibited at Tokyo Station Gal-

lery; Fig. 9 Original owned by Tenri University,

Sankokan Museum; Fig. 10 Reproduced from Bigot

sobyoshu, Iwanami, 1995, original owned by The

Archives of Japanese Cartoon History

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