Copyright by Peter David Siegenthaler 2004
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Copyright by Peter David Siegenthaler 2004 The Dissertation Committee for Peter David Siegenthaler certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Looking to the Past, Looking to the Future: The Localization of Japanese Historic Preservation, 1950–1975 Committee: Susan Napier, Supervisor Jordan Sand Patricia Maclachlan John Traphagan Christopher Long Looking to the Past, Looking to the Future: The Localization of Japanese Historic Preservation, 1950–1975 by Peter David Siegenthaler, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2004 Dedication To Karin, who was always there when it mattered most, and to Katherine and Alexander, why it all mattered in the first place Acknowledgements I have accumulated many more debts in the course of this project than I can begin to settle here; I can only hope that a gift of recognition will convey some of my gratitude for all the help I have received. I would like to thank primarily the members of my committee, Susan Napier, Patricia Maclachlan, Jordan Sand, Chris Long, and John Traphagan, who stayed with me through all the twists and turns of the project. Their significant scholarly contributions aside, I owe each of them a debt for his or her patience alone. Friends and contacts in Japan, Austin, and elsewhere gave guidance and assistance, both tangible and spiritual, as I sought to think about approaches broader than the immediate issues of the work, to make connections at various sites, and to locate materials for the research. They include Christoph Brumann, Ron Carle, Tom Dowling, Lieba Faier, Andrew Gordon, Higuchi Keiko and the other librarians at the International House of Japan, Ijima Takako, Nobuya and Kaori Inagaki, Inoue Yasuko and the Sendagaya language circle, Elizabeth Leicester, Chester H. Liebs, John Nelson, Sven Saaler, David Slater, André Sorensen, Mieko Sugiwara, Tak Toda, and the members of the dissertation-writing group in Austin: Brandt Peterson, Jessica Hester, Pete Kvetko, David Sandell, Adam Frank, and Michelle Wibbelsman. Thanks are due to each and every one of them. v In the Tokyo area, Kariya Yûga in the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Iwata Tsukasa in the Ministry of Construction, Nishimura Yukio at Tokyo University, Maeno Masaru and Fujii Yoshiko of the Zenkoku Machinami Hozon Renmei, Kihara Keikichi of the Association of National Trusts in Japan, and Director General Michitarô Yamaoka, Yoneyama Jun’ichi, and Negishi Estuko, of the Japan National Trust, all generously gave their time and expertise toward the project. Their graciousness was equaled only by the kindness displayed by contacts in each of the research sites. Many residents and visitors went to great pains to set me straight on the experience of life in the preservation districts, and I thank them all. In addition, in the Kanazawa city offices Konishi Ryôsuke and Nakagawa Tomiyoshi, in the local history museum Motoyasu Hiroshi, at Kanazawa University Hashimoto Tetsuya and Jeremy Phillipps, as well as Yoshida Hiroshi all contributed their part to the whole. In Hida, Director Tanaka Akira and Kôyama Tsukasa, both of the Takayama-shi Kyôdokan, Iwata Takashi at Hida no Sato, and Kondo Hisayoshi and Matsumoto Keita in the Ogimachi district of Shirakawa-mura introduced me to the recent history of that most beautiful region. And in the Kiso Valley I was blessed with the assistance of Tôyama Takeshi, director of the Nagiso-machi Hakubutsukan, Ogasawara Hiroshi and Suzumura Kuniya in the offices of the Tsumago wo Ai suru kai, in Magome the historians Hachiya Tomotu and Makino Noriko, and in Kiso-Fukushima Tanaka Hiroshi, who all generously shared their knowledge with me. I was aided early on in the project by a Social Science and Area Studies Research Grant, awarded by the University of Texas Office of Graduate Studies and the Ford Foundation, and was grateful as well for support from the Mitsubishi Fund of the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. vi I could not complete this section without recognizing the role of my parents, David and Myra Siegenthaler, in this study’s conception and execution. From them I learned to be curious, to reflect, and to care. I can only hope that they see themselves in the best parts of this work. And in closing, a note to my family: Karin, Kari, and Alex. This research has taken me down many roads, both intellectually and geographically, and many of them I have traveled alone. I was never happier, though, than on those we were traveling together. May those prove to be only the first of many more roads waiting for us to explore. vii Looking to the Past, Looking to the Future: The Localization of Japanese Historic Preservation, 1950–1975 Publication No._____________ Peter David Siegenthaler, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2004 Supervisor: Susan Napier Japan in the decades after 1945 is often thought of in the image of Japan, Inc., a uniform, business-driven, and homogenous society. In historic preservation, it is assumed that the protection of buildings and landscapes was absent altogether or was directed only from the bureaucratic center, either as a peripheral activity required by the nation’s status as a world leader or demanded by citizens as compensation for harsh living conditions in rapidly industrializing urban areas. A look at cultural dynamics in the middle years of the postwar period (1950–1975), however, reveals significant activity in historic preservation outside of national programs centered in the Ministry of Education. These locally conceived and implemented programs to protect and restore buildings and landscapes, while not always in direct conflict with national efforts, nonetheless sought above all to achieve particularly local goals, including economic development, improvement of the quality of life, and the protection and promotion of municipal and regional identity. It is these localized and largely independent efforts toward the implementation of historic preservation projects, beginning in the early 1950s, that are the focus of this viii research. This study asks three main questions. First, what were the social and legislative contexts in which local efforts at historic preservation were enacted in the years between 1950 and 1975? Second, how and why did local governments and civic institutions play such important roles in historic preservation in these years and how did the local presence in historic preservation evolve over the course of the period? Finally, how did local historic preservation debates and the programs they engendered affect and reflect a broader localization of control over other aspects of civic life, such as city planning and economic development, in this period? This research addresses those questions by first proposing philosophical, structural, and legislative genealogies for historic Japanese preservation before 1945. In the heart of the study, I then investigate the evolution of historic preservation language and practice in three locations during the middle postwar period, tracing the articulation of preservation concerns in each place and charting the programs enacted to bring those ideas to realization. ix Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction: Historic Preservation, Localization, and Postwar Japan....................1 Chapter 2 Protecting the Nation’s Monuments: Modernization and Historic Preservation, 1868–1945..........................................................52 Chapter 3 Architecture and Cultural Democracy: Hida Minzoku-mura and the Gasshô Houses of Gifu and Toyama..............................................102 Chapter 4 Cultural Properties, City Planning, and the People’s Voice: The Designation of Kanazawa’s Higashi Chaya-machi .............................157 Chapter 5 Localization and Historic Form: Searching for Authenticity on the Kiso Road.........................................................................................208 Chapter 6 Conclusions: Historic Preservation and the Legacies of Postwar Localization ..............................................................................257 Bibliography ........................................................................................................275 Vita ....................................................................................................................296 x Chapter 1 Introduction: Historic Preservation, Localization, and Postwar Japan Postwar Japan seems to have skillfully maneuvered only to gain money; in order for someone to arise who would take responsibility for caring for things, the whole system will have to be overthrown. I hear these sorts of comments from my correspondents overseas: Maybe money has been earned, but a respected position has been lost. From the 1965 essay “Nature Being Destroyed” by novelist Osaragi Jirô1 In February 1965, only a few months after the closing ceremonies of the Tokyo Olympic Games, Osaragi Jirô’s “Nature Being Destroyed” appeared in installments in the evening edition of the Asahi Shinbun, one of Japan’s leading newspapers. The Olympics had been the crowning achievement of a process begun almost immediately after the 1945 defeat: a program of domestic development and international relations aimed at returning Japan to the top tier of nations and reversing the several-decade slide into imperialism that had brought the country to ruin.