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The Shôkoshûseikan is a museum and archive in [[Kagoshima]] closely associated with the [[Shimazu clan]] and the history of [[Satsuma province]].

The Shôkoshûseikan is a museum and archive in [[Kagoshima]] closely associated with the [[Shimazu clan]] and the history of [[Satsuma province]].

The main hall (''honkan'') of the museum was originally built in [[1865]] in accordance with the dying wishes of former ''daimyô'' [[Shimazu Nariakira]] (d. [[1858]]) as one of a group of factories, dubbed the Shûseikan by Nariakira in [[1857]]/8,<ref>Ishin Shiryô Kôyô 維新史料綱要, vol 2 (1937), 405.</ref> and is today considered the oldest Western-style stone factory building in Japan.<ref name=plaques>Plaques on-site.</ref> The structure looks largely Western from the outside, but its interior architectural features incorporate much of traditional Japanese techniques, having been designed and constructed by Japanese builders based largely upon Western written and visual materials. At its peak, the factory employed over two thousand workers.<ref>[[Luke Roberts]], ''Mercantilism in a Japanese Domain: The Merchant Origins of Economic Nationalism in 18th-Century Tosa'', Cambridge University Press (1998), 202.</ref> The complex originally also included reverberating furnaces, blast furnaces, a smithy, a foundry, and a glass workshop, producing steel, large and small arms, gunpowder, various chemicals, [[Satsuma kiriko|glass]], [[Satsuma wares|ceramics]], porcelains, paper, petroleum products, and Western-style textiles;<ref>''Honjin ni tomatta daimyô tachi'', Toyohashi, Aichi: Futagawa-juku honjin shiryôkan (1996), 32.</ref> much of the compound was destroyed in fires in the [[1877]] [[Satsuma Rebellion]], but the remains of some of these structures are still visible today.

The main hall (''honkan'') of the museum was originally built in [[1865]] in accordance with the dying wishes of former ''daimyô'' [[Shimazu Nariakira]] (d. [[1858]]) as one of a group of factories, dubbed the Shûseikan by Nariakira in [[1857]]/8,<ref>Ishin Shiryô Kôyô 維新史料綱要, vol 2 (1937), 405.</ref> and is today considered the oldest Western-style stone factory building in Japan.<ref name=plaques>Plaques on-site.</ref> The structure looks largely Western from the outside, but its interior architectural features incorporate much of traditional Japanese techniques, having been designed and constructed by Japanese builders based largely upon Western written and visual materials. At its peak, the factory employed over two thousand workers.<ref>[[Luke Roberts]], ''Mercantilism in a Japanese Domain: The Merchant Origins of Economic Nationalism in 18th-Century Tosa'', Cambridge University Press (1998), 202.</ref> The complex originally also included reverberating furnaces, blast furnaces, a smithy, a foundry, and a glass workshop, producing steel, large and small arms, [[gunpowder]], various chemicals, [[Satsuma kiriko|glass]], [[Satsuma wares|ceramics]], porcelains, paper, petroleum products, and Western-style textiles;<ref>''Honjin ni tomatta daimyô tachi'', Toyohashi, Aichi: Futagawa-juku honjin shiryôkan (1996), 32.</ref> much of the compound was destroyed in fires in the [[1877]] [[Satsuma Rebellion]], but the remains of some of these structures are still visible today.

The reverberatory furnace, completed in [[1857]] based on a combination of Western and Japanese technology, was over 20 meters tall; it was used primarily to produce cannon. In [[1892]], Shimazu Tadayoshi had an additional factory structure built; known as the Shûseijo, it was a site for producing pottery, rifles, swords, and mining equipment.

The reverberatory furnace, completed in [[1857]] based on a combination of Western and Japanese technology, was over 20 meters tall; it was used primarily to produce cannon. In [[1892]], Shimazu Tadayoshi had an additional factory structure built; known as the Shûseijo, it was a site for producing pottery, rifles, swords, and mining equipment.