Kishu Tokugawa Edo mansion

The Kishû Tokugawa clan were one of the Gosanke, three collateral houses of the main Tokugawa clan line of shoguns descended from Tokugawa Ieyasu. The former site of their extensive mansion in Edo, just outside the moats of Edo castle, served briefly as a temporary Tokyo Imperial Palace in 1873 to 1889, during which time a Western-style residence for Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa, designed by Josiah Conder, was also built on the grounds. By 1912, the Imperial family was no longer actively using the site, and in 1930, it became the site of residences for the Yi family, the former Korean royal family who had now been made kazoku (Japanese aristocracy, alongside former daimyô and courtiers).

The extensive grounds which were once controlled by the Kishû Tokugawa have today been significantly divided up, with a variety of apartment buildings, office buildings, shopping centers, and the like occupying various parts of the space. The section of the grounds formerly home to Western-style residences for Prince Kitashirakawa, and later for the Yi family, is today maintained by the Akasaka Prince Hotel as a luxurious restaurant and lodging.

References

• Plaques on-site.