days that are still enjoyed by modern Tokyo residents every other year, when the festival brings a colorful procession and excitement to the city. Below the Hie Shrine, in the flat land spreading from the Diet to Akasaka Mitsuke, is an area where the politicians and reporters, and today the minions of the television studios, continue to find places for relaxation, gossip, and the making of deals. Much of this activity has always been done in expensive restaurants on side streets off Sotobori-dori, the main street running through Akasaka and once the outer moat of the castle grounds. Here too are the luxurious New Otani and Akasaka Prince Hotels with their striking architecture and many amenities.
1 HANZO-MON TO NAGATACHO
Hanzomon Station on the subway line of that name is where this tour begins, and it starts where the previous tour ended. Walking from the subway station to the main street, Shinjuku-dori, the tour turns east toward the Hanzo-mon Gate and the Fukiage area of the Imperial Palace grounds. The most striking element in this part of Tokyo is the nine-story 1984 Wacoal Kojimachi Building by architect Kisho Kurokawa. As buildings go, it is not as tall and overpowering as some of the recent skyscrapers in the city, but its architectural design is rather striking. It has been described by some as an oversized sewing machine (not inappropriate considering that the sponsor of the building is a garment manufacturer of lingerie whose main office this is). From a distance the design on its east side gives the appearance of having a baleful eye near the top of the building—or, so it is claimed, that is the manner in which Emperor Hirohito regarded it, for the building peers over the palace grounds. Synthetic marble and aluminum bands cover the façade of the structure, and the canopy over its entrance has been described as a giant flying saucer. The lobby of the building is interestingly decorated with mosaics from China, Korea, and Japan, and the reception area on the ninth floor is striking, with its high-domed ceiling. Exhibits are frequently on display, and the building has an Art Deco theater and a café-lounge.
Turning to the right on Uchibori-dori (Inner Moat Street), which runs along the palace moat, one comes to the National Theater (Kokuritsu Gekijo). This 1983 edifice provided the nation with its first state-owned theater, a center that offers productions of traditional Japanese performing arts. The theater sits on a rise, and its reinforced concrete structure is built in the azekura (log cabin) style of the Shoso-in Treasury of Nara, a 1,300-year-old wooden storehouse that the exterior of this building imitates. The theater has two auditoriums. The larger one to the left, seating 1,610, is primarily for Kabuki productions and ancient court music. The smaller auditorium, to the right, has 590 seats and is meant for Bunraku (puppet plays), Kyogen (farce), and other traditional forms of Japanese dance, music, and theater. The L-shaped lobby has displays pertaining to Japanese theater, ranging from costumes to scrolls about ancient performing arts. (These may be viewed between 10:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.) Adjacent is Engei Hall, a smaller, more intimate theater seating 300, which offers Rakugo and other forms of traditional storytelling or comedy. Ironically, the roof of the National Theater was used at one time by the writer Yukio Mishima as a parade ground for his private army. Mishima’s concern that traditional Japanese values were being undermined by Westernization after World War II led to his ultimate attempt to persuade soldiers in the nearby Ichigaya military barracks to revolt. Laughed at by modern soldiers, who abjured the fiery militarism of the not-too-distant past, Mishima committed seppuku, his death actually coming about through his decapitation by one of his followers on November 25, 1970.
The Supreme Court of Japan
Just beyond the National Theater is the 1974 Supreme Court of Japan (Saiko Saibansho), a rather austere building in white granite that was designed by Shinichi Okada, who had studied architecture at Yale University. Many people find the interior of the building to be equally overwhelming. The building has the appearance of a bunker where justice has hunkered down, a not-too-inviting structure. (Tours are offered on weekdays in Japanese at 3:00 p.m.; closed from July 20 to August 31.) Perhaps in contrast to this less than graceful and almost windowless building, at the corner in front of the edifice is a piece of sculpture of three naked women in bronze—an art form that would hardly have been accepted in the decades and centuries before 1950. They complement the statue of three naked men in the park alongside the moat just to the left of the point where Shinjuku-dori meets Uchibori-dori, across from the Wacoal Building.
Continuing along Uchibori-dori, at the crossroads on the right side is the Miyake-zaka slope, which the overhead Shuto Expressway mounts. At this crossroads, the moat and Uchibori-dori, which diverges to the left, should be abandoned, as one heads under the Shuto Expressway into the street leading to the National Diet Building, passing the headquarters of the Socialist Party of Japan on the right. This area bore a more military outlook prior to 1945, for here after 1870 was located the War Ministry, while the headquarters of the General Staff Officers sat where the Parliamentary Museum is now located. Behind these structures was the official residence of the Minister of War. For a period after 1945 this area held the office of the U.S. Occupation Chief of Staff. In the years since World War II, these various military units have been replaced by more peaceful and democratic structures.
The National Diet Building
2 NATIONAL DIET BUILDING
On the left along this street headed toward the Diet is the Parliamentary Museum (Kensei Kinenkan). (It is open without charge from 9:30 to 5:00 p.m. [last entry at 4:30] but is closed on Saturdays, Sundays, national holidays, the last day of each month, and from December 28 through January 4. Entry is free.) The museum was established in 1972 to commemorate the establishment of the Diet a century earlier. The first floor, as the building is approached from Uchibori-dori, contains the 1960 Ozaki Memorial Hall (Ozaki Yukio Kinenkan), which commemorates Yukio Ozaki (1859–1954), who was a member of Parliament starting with the session of the first Diet in 1890 and who served in the Diet for sixty-three years. A fearless opponent of the military in the 1920s and 1930s, he stood for parliamentary government at a time when it was being undermined by the Japanese military. He was also responsible for the gift in 1912 of the cherry blossom trees that grace the parks of Washington, D.C. The adjacent main portion of the Parliamentary Museum offers a model of the Diet on the second floor. The model is accompanied by an audiovisual slide presentation in Japanese and in English detailing the development of parliamentary democracy in Japan and the vicissitudes that the building and democracy have faced through the years. Special exhibitions are also presented from time to time.
Across the street from the Parliamentary Museum is the 1961 eight-story National Diet Library, with more than two million books in its six above-ground floors and its two below-ground levels. (It is open daily without charge from 9:30 to 7:00 p.m. [to 5:00 p.m. on Saturdays] except Sundays, national holidays, and the third Wednesday of each month.) The National Diet library has 30 branch libraries.
Ahead on the street we have been following lies the massive three-story National Diet Building on the right. But first attention should be drawn to a small “temple” on the left in the park. On the hill below the Diet is a small classical Roman temple, which covers the Water Level Bench Repository. It is from this marker that the height of the Japanese plains and mountains are measured. The marker is set at 80.3 feet (24.1 meters) above the level of the Sumida River. Between the mini-temple and the Parliamentary Museum is a plaza with a long pool with fountains, and beside it are three metal shafts 100 feet (30 meters) tall supporting a clock. This area is on a height above and overlooking the Sakurada-mon Gate of the palace and the government offices below.
The National Diet Building (Kokkaigijido) stands on the site of the mansion of Lord Ii, the leading minister of the Tokugawa shogun in the 1850s, who, with his guards, was cut down not far from here at the Sakuradamon Gate entrance to the castle grounds in 1860. A park or plaza, as mentioned above, stands before the Diet, with a 164-foot (49.2-meter)-wide boulevard
