Paper short abstract:

My paper examines Takahama Kyoshi's (1874-1959) notion of urban modernity in the essay "Marunouchi" (1927) while situating it in the broader context of the teito fukkō (Imperial Capital reconstruction) rhetoric and emphasising his assessment of architectural designs and technological development.

Paper long abstract:

Within the framework of the urban renewal discourse characterising the Great Kantō Earthquake's aftermath (Yoshimi 2002; Sorensen 2002), journals and magazines played a major role in disseminating contrasting ideas about urban modernisation, the ongoing efforts at promoting functionalisation, and technological advancement. In 1927, «Tōkyō nichi nichi shinbun» published a series titled "Dai Tōkyō hanjōki" whose overall aim was to track the reconstruction process by asking renowned authors of the time to write non-fiction pieces about one area of the city that they considered particularly significant. Though the prevailing tone of the collection of essays is elegiac (Goddard 2017), some of the writers displayed a positive attitude towards the future of Tōkyō. I will focus on Takahama Kyoshi's (1874-1959) contribution, "Marunouchi", where the business district is the focal point of a meditation about destruction, city planning and what we may define as the "iconology" of a modern capital.

Takahama was a regular contributor of the literary magazine «Hototogisu», whose offices had been set up in the Marunouchi building, or Marubiru, soon after its completion, in the early months of 1923. While drawing on his personal recollections of Marunouchi, Takahama also adopts the point of view of the newcomer, and this hybridisation of the narrative voice enables him to look at the quarter from a distance, objectively. Further, the essay is structured according to a threefold timeline: past, present, and future Tōkyō are coalesced in a composite image reflecting anxieties, expectations, and sense of loss embedded in the reconstruction process.

Takahama focuses on essential elements of the modern city such as tall buildings and transportation networks; he seeks the distinctive quality of an Imperial Capital-the so-called "teito-rashisa"-within the fabric of post-quake Tōkyō and finds it in the business district, whose trademark building should be, he suggests, the very "access point" to the city. My paper will examine Takahama's notion of urban modernity while situating this essay in the broader context of the "teito fukkō" (Imperial Capital reconstruction) rhetoric and emphasising his assessment of architectural designs and technological development.