There’s something about turn of the century red brick buildings that excite me. I’m not sure if it’s the color, styling or the history, maybe it’s all of them but when I see one I have to check it out whether it’s a preserved museum or a ruin on the verge of collapse.
The Hiroshima Museum of History and Traditional Crafts is one such red brick museum, though I originally didn’t have it on my itinerary. I’d come to Hiroshima to do a series on atomic bomb surviving structures-turned-museum around ground zero. My sweet and delicate wife determined to join my on this endeavor but after a day of reading about atomized children at Honkawa and Fukuro-machi she decided to sit the next day out and regain her sanity. Looking for alternate ways to enjoy her day she found a museum dedicated to old Hiroshima, one about the city’s days as a river-based economy which drew it’s bounty from the water, which she as a girl from small Kawatana, a town known for fishing and fish-shaped water bombs (torpedoes) could appreciate.
This museum was built in an akarenga (red brick) army cannery that survived the atomic bomb, so I changed my plans and came along too. As both of these things the museum building itself is tied to the history of Hiroshima.
As Kure, Maizuru, Sasebo and Yokosuka were navy cities, Hiroshima was an army city and this building is a remainder from that period where Hiroshima grew and modernized in pace with military advancement. This was a period that ultimately ended with the city being chosen as the ideal target for the first atomic bomb.
The decision that ended with the bomb was made in 1871, when the new Imperial Japanese Army chose Hiroshima Castle as the location for a garrison. Because it was army property the castle was exempt from the 1873 edict to tear down all the castles, leaving it along others such as Himeji as one of the few surviving originals.
The garrison grew and more military units took over additional ground surrounding the castle until the base spread all the way to Aioi Dori, just north of where the atomic bomb struck. Its high point came during the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894 when the Emperor and Diet converted the castle into a temporary capital while guiding the war’s progress.
With every war and incident the army grew and Hiroshima benefited. At its peak, the Imperial Japanese Army could process 20,000 troops a day through the city and to the front line, wherever it may be. This required a well-connected railway system, a port that could support massive volumes of shipping and facilities to produce and store clothing, food, weapons and anything else the army would need. This made Hiroshima a regional powerhouse as the military logistical and production capabilities translated into an impressive capability to ship and receive goods nation and worldwide. The areas around the military base, such as Nakajima-honmachi, and ports in particular began outperforming other neighborhoods.
The Ujina Army Provisions Depot Building was erected in 1911 as part of the military expansion. Located in Ujina, the primarily military and civilian port of Hiroshima, it was one of many such facilities built to support the army around this time. It was a meat cannery and horse fodder producer, and also had facilities for rice polishing, research and storehouses. The museum building was the cannery, a role it continued in until 1944 when the valuable machinery was moved out of the city into an evacuation factory, a common practice at the time.
The stump of the chimney is hidden out back, obscured by heavy foliage.
The cannery property was converted into a farm and manned by students during the last year of the war. The students lived inside the former cannery building.
As they finished morning quarters on Aug. 6, 1945 the students saw an intense orange flash from the northwest followed by a massive bellowing sound and a blast powerful enough to shatter all the cannery windows, crumple the roof inward and bend the steel beams supporting it. Frightening and powerful, but none of the students were killed, though glass was everywhere on the building floor. They were 3.2 km from the hypocenter.
A bent steel support has been left as is, an example of the bomb’s power
Though the students suffered no deaths, they would see it in the following days as the former cannery was converted into a temporary overflow ward for the excess injured that couldn’t be supported at nearby hospitals. Many would die here waiting for care.
Post-war it became a Calbee food factory and was used until the 1980s. Recognized as one of the last Meiji-era western-style buildings in Hiroshima it was made an important tangible cultural asset of Hiroshima City and opened as a museum in 1985.
Unlike the other museums I saw, this one is not geared for foreign visitors as next to nothing is in English, but most of it didn’t require an explanation anyway. The one point that is dual language is the signage for the preserved roof support beam that was bent by the atomic bomb.
Despite its size, the main museum is just one big room full of artifacts related to Hiroshima’s waterborne economic activity. There was a lot of display related to fishing, collecting mollusks, seaweed harvesting and boating with enough supporting imagery to get the idea on how it was all used across well. There doesn’t appear to be much ‘history’ in the sense of an organized timeline to be read as this is a display of how things used to be. The one corner that’s different is a mid-twentieth century ‘living room’ with modern appliances like a television and refrigerators.
The rest of the museum is a rotating exhibit. When I visited it was on one of my favorite movies, In This Corner of the World. The movie is about a young woman from Hiroshima who moves in with her husband’s family in Kure during World War II and focuses on daily life in wartime Japan. For this they had displays about 1930s Hiroshima with pictures of Nakajima-honmachi, the lively shopping district that’s now the Peace Park and Aioibashi (Aioi Bridge), the T-shaped aimpoint for the atomic bomb, in its previous iterations, showing how it and the city changed. The one that really stood out was a night time image of diners in a restaurant in Nakajima-honmachi, in the background is the outline of a building illuminated in lights. It doesn’t say as such in the caption which focuses on the foreground, but based on the shape it’s the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall- the A-Bomb Dome.
Upstairs I watched a silent 8 minute video of mid-1930s street footage showing what city life looked like. I love 1930s style so I enjoyed seeing the old shopping district with its elaborate street lights bustling with activity as it was basically the photos on the wall in motion.
The upstairs exhibit room was nothing but story boards and art from the movie and manga of In This Corner of the World along with supporting real world artifacts and shows how the work was based on real life, though the story itself is a work of fiction. They wouldn’t let me take pictures up there, which was a shame because I’d never seen the board game they had displayed anywhere before. It was from a girl’s magazine and it starts with players making a care package for soldiers fighting in China and as you progress along the board you see how your support ultimately wins the city of Nanjing! Girl Power!
The displayed collection had propaganda like this and other care package items grouped together and other groupings included rationing and clothing and common household items. Overall, even not speaking Japanese I found their collection fascinating and I wish that I could have read all the supporting displays about the fictional work and its real life counterparts.
Outside the exhibit room was a collection of manga and anime production art showing Hiroshima locations going from sketches to finished product and even a model of the home of Suzu, the story’s protagonist.
The museum was easy to breeze through. First floor alone I was able to take in quickly and I spent far more time upstairs, though it’s hard to gauge how long it would have taken had I not partaken in the 2 p.m. tour. The museum was quick and fun and not all that far from the other better known and more visited spots, so I recommend visiting if you’ve the time to see a different side of Hiroshima in a beautiful, rare building. Admission was 100 yen.
Even museums like this need a cute mascot character.
That said, there are other red bricks still around, though few as well preserved. The former clothing depot, which still has its atomic bomb dented shutters, is closed though it may be renovated and used again.
This is also just one example of an atomic bomb survivor being converted into a museum based on something that has nothing to do with the bombing. Hiroshima recognizes 90 structures within 5 km of the hypocenter as survivors and some of the more outlying ones like this one felt the blast but didn’t take much damage. They continued to function and when they lost that functionality they were converted into museums. The city meteorological museum for example is the old observatory that was built in 1934.
A final place to mention, as I’ve gone on about Hiroshima’s military history, is the Chugoku Regional Military Headquarters bunker located on the Hiroshima Castle grounds. School girls working in the bunker’s air defense command center are believed to be the first people to report the atomic bombing after it happened. During my trip I found out that the bunker is preserved and can be toured with reservations, which I was too short-timed to do. I’d seen part of it during my visit to the castle two years ago, but was unaware of the touring potential.
I want to thank my wife, Emi-chan, for her love and support and making this series possible. Oi wa Emi-chan ba aishito bai! (Hazukashika ne?)
Atomic Bomb Surviving Structures Website:
https://www.hiroshima-navi.or.jp/en/sightseeing/hibaku_ireihi/tatemono/
ADDRESSES
Hiroshima Museum of History and Traditional Crafts
2-6-20 Ujina-miyuki, Minami-ku, Hiroshima 734-0015
082-253-6771
Chugoku Regional Military Headquarters Air Defense Room
21 Moto-machi, Naka-ku, Hiroshima 730-0011
082-228-081
Ebayama Museum of Meteorology
1-40-1, Eba-minami, Naka-ku, Hiroshima 730-0835
082-231-0177