Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2018. xvii, 269 pp. (Maps, B&W photos, coloured photos, illustrations.) US$68.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-8248-7375-2.
This engaging new study by Alice Tseng traces the modern history of Kyoto from the Meiji Restoration to the height of the Asia-Pacific War, providing an informative account of the continued evolution of the city’s built environment. Modern Kyoto presents a persuasive argument for the ancient capital’s enduring relevance as an important symbolic centre even after the departure of Emperor Meiji and the establishment of Tokyo as the Japanese imperial capital. Through detailed analysis of major architectural projects and ceremonial events, Tseng demonstrates how Kyoto’s past was reimagined in the modern era, and how the inauguration of new public spaces in turn reshaped daily life in the city.
The book’s four main chapters cover this transformative period in broadly chronological fashion, beginning with the Meiji-era redevelopment of the Kyoto Imperial Palace and the construction of Heian Shrine in 1895 to commemorate Emperor Kanmu and the 1,100th anniversary of Kyoto’s founding. Chapter 2 describes the wedding of Crown Prince Yoshihito in 1900 and the development of Okazaki Park as a cultural center, one of several instances that saw the convergence of imperial pageantry and public works. Chapter 3 focuses on the enthronement ceremonies for Emperor Taishō in 1915 and Emperor Shōwa in 1928, two events that necessitated major improvements in the urban infrastructure, as well as temporary features such as triumphal arches, parade floats, and street decorations. Chapter 4 takes up the larger architectural legacy of the imperial enthronement ceremonies by examining a series of commemorative projects that included the second-generation Kyoto Station, Kyoto Botanical Garden, and Kyoto Art Museum. The epilogue moves further ahead in time to consider the city during and after the Asia-Pacific War, revisiting Heian Shrine and the Kyoto Botanical Garden as depicted in Tanizaki Jun’ichirō’s The Makioka Sisters (Sasameyuki) and Kawabata Yasunari’s The Old Capital (Koto).
To elucidate these developments in the city’s history, Tseng surveys a wide variety of archival materials, including photographs, newspaper articles, maps, architectural drawings, and woodblock prints. The result is a richly informed study that not only demonstrates the importance of public buildings and ceremonies to the creation of modern Kyoto, but also shows how the production and dissemination of different images contributed to the idealization of Kyoto as a vital link to Japan’s imperial past. Tseng makes clear that the meaning ascribed to the city’s most famous sights was by no means fixed, but instead was continually subject to reinvention. I remain curious about the place in this narrative for the seventeenth-century Katsura Imperial Villa, which the modern architect Bruno Taut famously reimagined as an exemplar of architectural purity during his stay in Japan from 1933 to 1936.
Tseng’s primary focus on sites of ceremony and commemoration also raises the question of how else a distinctively modern Kyoto came into existence. This question is relevant for an understanding of the city not so much as it was planned by government officials, but rather as it was experienced by ordinary residents and visitors. As Tseng notes, members of the public participated enthusiastically in events such as the inauguration of Heian Shrine and the enthronement ceremonies of the Taishō and Shōwa emperors. At the same time, these people found their lives transformed by other, more quotidian developments in the city, including cafés, department stores, and a burgeoning transportation network. Tseng touches on this dimension of Kyoto’s modernity in several instances, as in her description of Watanabe Setsu’s Kyoto Station, which soon became a destination unto itself. This and other urban locales offered ample opportunities for shopping, eating, and people watching. The Kyoto branch of Maruzen, the famous purveyor of books and foreign goods, even serves as the setting for the climactic scene in Kajii Motojirō’s 1925 short story, “The Lemon” (Remon), in which the protagonist commits a defiant act of anarchic transgression. How did such spaces of consumption and leisure complement the monumental sites of state ceremony? Tseng’s epilogue hints at the malleability of even these official public spaces, noting the different symbolic functions that Heian Shrine and the Kyoto Botanical Garden take on in the novels of Tanizaki and Kawabata. The Japanese defeat in the Asia-Pacific War necessitated a disavowal of previous imperial associations, which ultimately led to the postwar reinvention of Kyoto as an international tourist destination and the embodiment of traditional Japanese culture.
Together with several other recent studies on the urban history of imperial Japan, Modern Kyoto expands our understanding of Japanese modernity beyond the capital of Tokyo. No less significantly, it shows just how closely this modernity was intertwined with Japanese imperialism. Similar strategies of urban planning and state ceremony also took place in the colonial capitals of Taihoku (Taipei) and Keijō (Seoul), a historical reality that invites comparative analysis. An enlightening read for the specialist and non-specialist alike, Modern Kyoto is a valuable contribution to the fields of modern Japanese history, architecture, and urban studies.
Timothy Unverzagt Goddard
The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR