HIBIYA PARK

“If the civic values of the people remain so stunted that we can’t trust them not to steal flowers from a park, then Japan is a doomed country. Part of a park’s purpose is to be an educational institution that fosters those civic values. This is like when a naughty kid who always gets into the candy hidden by their parents at home gets old enough to start going to the candy store, and after a few days loses interest in candy and stops eating it altogether. I’ll plant so many flowers in the park that the people will lose the will to steal them.”

– Honda Seiroku, presenting his plan for Hibiya Park

In the fall of 1900, I was commissioned to conduct a survey on the headwaters of the Tama River in Tokyo, so I was frequently in and out of Tokyo city hall. During that time I visited Professor Tatsuno Kingo, who was an advisor for the city from time to time. At the time, he was drawing the blueprints for Hibiya Park. When I made a little side comment about the drawings during our conversation, he said:

“I had no idea you knew so much about parks! I can handle architecture no problem, but I’m a complete novice when it comes to parks. The city has decided to build a big park on the old Hibiya Training Grounds, and for several years they had garden designers and tea ceremony masters working on designs, but none have cleared the city assembly. It’s going to be Japan’s first newly designed park, so the assembly wants it done up in a modern, western-style. I was asked to take over the design, but I’m having a lot of trouble. Would you mind taking a swing at it?”

With that, he pushed the park drawings into my hands. Left with no choice, I took them back to the university and returned a week later with a rough draft in-hand. It was so much to Mr. Tatsuno’s liking that he told Mayor Matsuda about me right away, and thereupon I was contracted to be the new park planner. But the fact was that I had never planned a park either. I had merely seen some parks in the West, and owned several books about parks. That said, there weren’t any park experts in Japan as yet, so I set about the work with a peculiar sort of hope and determination...

When I finally submitted my plan to the city assembly, there was much criticism from within and without. At one meeting of the city assembly it came under heavy fire: “Why aren’t there gates at any of the entrances? That might be fine in the West but here in Japan people will steal the flowers and trees in the middle of the night.” I responded:

“If the civic values of the people remain so stunted that we can’t trust them not to steal flowers from a park, then Japan is a doomed country. Part of a park’s purpose is to be an educational institution that fosters those civic values. This is like when a naughty kid who always gets into the candy hidden by their parents at home gets old enough to start going to the candy store, and after a few days loses interest in candy and stops eating it altogether. I’ll plant so many flowers in the park that the people will lose the will to steal them.”

The streets that exist in Hibiya Park today – that is, the big roadways – were something I drew freehand The .16 square kilometers of the park are divided, by those big roadways, into roughly four areas. One of those areas – where the tennis court, children’s playground, and lawn area are now – was the only one that we planned to turn into a pure Japanese-style garden, so that area alone I entrusted to Ozawa Keijiro, who at the time was the individual best versed in Japanese gardens. I decided to handle the remaining three areas myself...

The giant gingko tree in Hibiya Park was replanted there under my direction, the culmination of a strange tale in which I staked my job before Hoshi Toru, the chairman of the city assembly. I got into a heated argument with Mr. Hoshi about whether the giant gingko would take root if replanted, and, out of an abundance of masculine pride, declared I would make it take root, or else forfeit my position – and in the end, I was right. Before the war, there was a sign under the ginkgo which read as follows:

Ginkgo

Height: Approx. 21 meters

Width: Approx. 6 meters

Age: Approx. 400 years (estimate)

Originally located behind the Hibiya Lookout, this tree was replanted in 1902 during the construction of this park. At the time, it was thought that such a large tree could not be replanted...but because the forestry professor Honda Seiroku guaranteed that the tree would take root, it was replanted here and continues to grow splendidly.

The replanting cost 460 yen, and transporting the tree across four blocks took 25 days.