TOKIO REBUILT.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19941, 30 May 1930, Page 12

TOKIO REBUILT.

CHARACTER OP NEW CITY. The three days sot aside to celebrate the completion of the reconstruction of Tokio began on Monday, March 24th, when tbe Emperor drove round the city in an open British-mado car at the head of a procession of 30 cars. Ond of the most striking impressions of the journey was the bird's-cyo view of a large part of Tokio obtained from the ramparts of the c*stle moat at Kudan. Six years ago, as far as the eye could see, the district was a smoking waste without roads, vehicles, or intact buildings. Now it is pierced with broad arterial roads and its slopes are covered with new buidings, tho pale concrcto colours of which blend not unpleasingly with their surroundings. ' • Six new bridges spanning a river as wide as tho Thames in London; 400 smaller bridges over tho city's moats and inlets; 600 miles of new roadsthree new parks; 51 open spaces; 875,000 acres of smoking waste again covered with houses, shops, and factories—those figures sum up tho task which th'o citizens of Tokio, aided by. a paternal Government, havo carried out in 6i years.

Beautiful Architecture. Old Japan had a beautiful and, or-. ganic public architecture, says the To-' kio correspondent of "The Times." It may be seen in the black and white watch-towers and gateways of tho Imperial Palace, and it is completely exemplified in the castles of Nagova and Himeji. It ; lends itself to largo" buildings, and has been used, somewhat flamboyantly but with imprcssivo effect m the new Kabuki-ia Theatre. ' Her new buildings are, with few exceptions, copies of Western architecture and • being copies they are worse. She' has.two magnificent banks—the Mitsubishi, severely Greek, and tlid Mitsui built and designed .by a New York firm on classical, lines adapted to modern requirements—but most of her important new buildings are plain, large office blocks, which, being without architectural pretension, might be worse than they. are. An exception must bo made for the Imperial Hotel, designed by Rank.Lloyd Wright.. * The present Ginza, which is tho Strand and Bond street, in.one,-is the fourth in.half a century. It is more jazzy" than oyer, the chief difference being that concrete or tin' or copper fronts have replaced plaster or wood, and. the architectural riot which results from every shopkeeper' owning ,his ownsmall site is partially repressed by an increasing number of modern department stores in steel and concrete.