UENO PARK

“Civilization shears the nerves, and grinds the spirit to dullness. Drunk off the thrills of civilization and still thirsty for more, untold numbers flock to the latest exhibition. An exhibition is what you get when you sift civilization to the bottom of your bag of thrills. Blinding illumination is what you get when you filter your exhibition through the dull sands of night. If you’ve got even a bit of life in you, you seek proof of it in illumination, and can’t help but gasp in astonishment at what you see.

That moment is when the civilized, so intoxicated with civilization, first realize they’re alive."

– The Poppy, 1907

Late 1600s | The Tokugawa Family Temple

In 1624, Kanei-ji Temple was founded in the northeastern reaches of Edo. Like Zojo-ji in the southwest, Kanei-ji was a family temple for the Tokugawa dynasty, which then ruled the Japanese archipelago. From the 18th century onward, Tokugawa shoguns were buried alternately at Zojo-ji and Kanei-ji.

That came to an end in 1868, when several domains in western Japan rebelled against the Tokugawa government. The rebels marched on Tokyo, and occupied much of the city. Most of the shogun’s forces surrendered. But a band of loyalists barricaded themselves inside Kanei-ji. The rebels laid siege to the temple. Altogether, about three hundred died in the battle. Kanei-ji was almost totally destroyed.

1873 | Ueno Park

In 1873, the new government issued a decree establishing five parks across Tokyo. The largest of the five, Ueno Park, was declared atop the ruins of Kanei-ji.

The same year, Japan organized a pavilion for the World’s Fair in Vienna. Four years later, the Vienna delegation used Ueno Park to convene a National Industrial Exhibition. The 1877 expo collected industrial technologies from across Japan for showcase alongside the latest tech from Europe and the United States. Japanese companies showcased their work in six categories: mining; manufacturing, art, machinery, agriculture, and gardening. The government’s goal was to encourage economic development, all the while taking stock of Japan’s domestic technologies. It organized follow-up expos in 1881 and 1890. These came with an added nationalist flair. They promoted not just economic development, but national unity under the emperor. The emperor began issuing rescripts marking the expos. It became custom for the president of the organizing committee to be a member of the royal family.

1907 | The Tokyo Industrial Exposition

A 4th Industrial Expo was planned for 1907, but the government opted to cancel due to the recession that followed the Russo-Japanese War. Tokyo’s government leapt into the breach, and organized the largest expo yet. For four months, the park morphed into a carnival of exhibition halls, light shows, and street vendors. Over 6 million people visited. There was even a water slide!

But Natsume Soseki, the country’s most famous novelist, was having none of it. “Civilization shears the nerves, and grinds the spirit to dullness,” he wrote in his novel “The Poppy,” which takes place at the 1907 expo:

Intoxicated with the thrills of civilization and still thirsty for more, untold numbers flock to the latest exhibition. An exhibition is what you get when you sift civilization to the bottom of your bag of thrills. Blinding illumination is what you get when you filter your exhibition through the dull sands of night. If you’ve got even a bit of life in you, you seek proof of it in illumination, and can’t help but gasp in astonishment at what you see. That moment is when the civilized, so intoxicated with civilization, first realize they’re alive.

The Tokyo Industrial Expo was the first to spotlight Japan’s growing empire. Illuminated pavilions, dedicated to Taiwan, Korea, and the Ryukyu Islands ringed Shinobazu Pond. Illuminated pavilions, dedicated to Taiwan, Korea, and the Ryukyu Islands ringed Shinobazu Pond. This was the “illumination” so scorned by Soseki:

No one takes more pride in their own productivity than the civilized. And nobody more bemoans their own idleness.

Soseki seems to reserve his ire for the everyday people who flocked to the expos--unthinkingly and uncritically, in his telling. He compares them to moths drawn to a flame. But we might also read his words as denouncing the imperial adventures of the Meiji state at the turn of the century. Either way, the expo at Ueno Park marked the arrival of a new Tokyo. A city newly flooded with artificial light. The heart of an empire.

1922 | Tokyo Peace Exhibition

The 1922 expo, dubbed the Tokyo Peace Exhibition, had a more avant-garde flavor. The exhibition was the first since the end of World War I. It was the debut of what is now considered Japan’s first architectural movement: the Bunriha, or “Seperatist School.” The Bunriha architects rebelled against the traditional European styles then dominant in Japan. Instead, they took inspiration from the modernist architecture of postwar Germany. The leader of the Bunriha, Horiguchi Sutemi, designed most of the structures around Shinobazu Pond.

In his book on interwar Japan, Frederick Dickinson notes that the 1922 expo opened with a declaration by the planning chair, Prince Kan-in, that the world was “fed up with ‘the ghastly evils of war’,” and that he had ‘full admiration for the happiness of peace’.” Sadly, beneath the veneer of the expo’s pacifism, there were still signs of the carnage ahead: pavilions dedicated to Japan's colonies in Korea, Taiwan, Okinawa, and Manchuria.

1928 | Imperial Tokyo Exhibition

In 1929, Ueno Park hosted the exhaustingly-named Imperial Tokyo Exhibition for the Encouragement of National Production. Quite a departure from the “Tokyo Peace Exhibition” several years prior. The 1928 expo commemorated the Showa emperor’s ascension to the throne. The organizers arranged for a “National Defense Pavilion,” which showcased the Army’s latest weapons and fighter planes. An especially vile corner of the exhibit collected gas masks and poison gas samples from around the world.

Two years later, Japan invaded Manchuria, igniting more than a decade of war in East Asia.