TOKIO REBUILT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20562, 13 May 1930, Page 9

TOKIO REBUILT.

CHANGE SINCE EARTHQUAKE.

CHARACTER OF NEW CITY.

The three days set aside to celebrate the completion of the reconstruction of Tokio began on Monday, March 24, when the Emperor drove round the city in an ■open British-made car at the head of a procession of 30 cars. One of the most striking impressions of the journey was tho bird's-eje view of a large part of Tokio obtained from the ramparts of the castle moat J Kudan. Six years' ago, as far as eye -Kild 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 buildings, tho pale concrevs colours of which blend not unpleasingly with thei? surroundings. Six new bridges spanning a river as wide as the Thames in London, 400 smaller bridges over the city's, moats and .inlets; 600 miles of new roads; three new parks, 51 open spaces; 875,000 acres of smoking waste again covered with houses, shops and factories—those figures sum up the task which the citizens of Tokio, aided by a paternal Government, have carried cutin 6£ years.

Old Japan had a beautiful and organic public architecture, says the Tokio correspondent of the Times. It may be seen in the black and white watch-towers and gateways of the Imperial. Palace, and it is completely exemplified in the castles of Nagoya and Himeji. It lends itself to large buildings and has beeu used, somewhat flamboyantly but with impressive effect, in the new Kabuki-za Theatre. Her new buildings are, with few exccp- , tions, copies of Western architecture, and being copies they are worse. She has two magnificent banks —the Mitsubishi, severely Greek, and the Mitsui, built Mid. 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 arc. An exception must be made for the Imperial Hotel, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. _ c*.,nd The present Ginza, which is the Shand and Bond Street in one, is the fourth in l.alf a century. It is more ,J az^ than ever, the chief ditrerencebeingtlafc concrete or tin or copper fronts h<»° of modern department stores concrete*. " • ... ,