1922 Iguchi Pictorial View of Tokyo, Japan

Last glimpse of 'old' Tokyo before the Great Kanto Earthquake.

This is an unrecorded 1922 panoramic pictorial view of Tokyo and environs prepared by Iguchi Saburō and published by Shōbundō. Focusing on the city's impressive streetcar network. More importantly, it provides a 'last glimpse' of 'old' Tokyo before most of the city seen here was destroyed by the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and Fire.

A Closer Look

This view is oriented towards the northwest, with Tokyo Bay in the foreground, and is roughly centered on the imperial palace (宮城). The streetcar (電車) network is the focus. Vertical red or white boxes to label parks, palaces, Shintō shrines, Buddhist temples, schools and universities, hospitals, urban wards (區), military facilities, police stations, cemeteries, and railway stations. Streetcar stations are marked with tan-colored boxes or circles for stations allowing transfers to another line, with the routes themselves appearing as white lines with black bands. Two noteworthy features in the view are Tokyo Station (discussed below) at center towards bottom and the Meiji Shrine (明治神宮外苑) towards top-left, the former being recently-built and the latter still under construction at the time.

Tokyo as an Imperial Capital and Global City

The Meiji Era had been a period of tremendous change in Japan, particularly in cities, and in Tokyo more than any other. New ideas, technologies, and fashions from abroad were sought out and adopted with incredible rapidity, and in the process were localized to suit Japanese tastes. The subsequent Taishō Era saw a general liberalization of society, greater experimentation, and a widening of political participation. By the 1920s, Tokyo was a cosmopolitan global city, one of the largest in the world, with all the entertainment, transportation, luxuries, public spaces, and services that such a status would entail. At the time of this view's publication, the population of the city proper was over 2 million people and more than 4 million for the larger prefecture.

During these years, the Imperial Government Railways significantly modernized the city's rail infrastructure, most notably completing the iconic red-brick Tokyo Station (東京驛) in 1914, seen here just south of the Imperial Palace. This masterpiece, designed by Tatsuno Kingo, served as the symbolic gateway to the capital and the core of the 'loop' design of the Yamanote Line, completed in 1925. Linking Tokyo Station and several other urban stations such as Kanda (神田) and Ueno (上野駅, here using a different character variant 駅 than the 'station' 驛 in Tokyo Station) with suburban stops, not only did the Yamanote Line streamline daily commutes and promote the further development of suburban garden cities, it also encouraged the growth of 'terminal culture,' where department stores and entertainment districts blossomed around major rail hubs.

The Taishō era was the height of the age of streetcars in Tokyo. Following the municipalization of private streetcar lines in 1911, the city government aggressively expanded the Toden (都電, Tokyo City Tram) network. These streetcars became the primary mode of transport for the masses, weaving through the increasingly crowded urban districts, particularly Ginza and Nihonbashi, south of the Imperial Palace. This period also witnessed the birth of bus services and the introduction of motorized taxis, the latter of which challenged rickshaws' traditional dominance. Following the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, which decimated much of the city's transport network, even greater changes were instituted. The city's reconstruction, led by Gotō Shinpei (1857 - 1929), prioritized the creation of wide, fire-resistant boulevards, the modernization of bridges, and the development of the Tokyo Underground Railway, Japan's first subway line, which was planned before the earthquake but constructed afterwards and opened in 1927.

Publication History and Census

This view was drawn by an artist named Fukenrō (不軒楼) who signs with a seal at left. It was printed and published in April 1922 (Taishō 11) by Iguchi Saburō (井口三郎) of the publisher Shōbundō (松文堂), based in Kyōbashi, Tokyo. We have been unable to locate any further information about Fukenrō, Iguchi, or Shōbundō, which looks to have been a short-lived operation, perhaps due to the earthquake and fire the following year. This was perhaps the earliest of several visually impressive urban panoramas highlighting transportation networks published in the early 1920s, slightly predating a better-known panorama of Tokyo and Environs (東京附近パノラマ地圖) published by Kanaobun'endō (金尾文淵堂) and a 1923 panorama of Osaka published by Warajiya (previously sold by us, OsakaView-warajiya-1923). The present work appears to be unrecorded in institutional collections, either in Japan or abroad.

Condition

Average. Wear along original fold lines. Residue from old tape repairs. Loss at fold intersections. Verso repairs to fold separations. Closed tear extending 2 inches within printed area professionally repaired on verso.