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→Building a Modern National Capital
[[Fukuzawa Yukichi]] was among the most prominent of a series of officials who called in [[1883]] for a coordinated plan for the city as a whole, and for a focus on the palace, criticizing the efforts of former Tokyo governor [[Matsuda Michiyuki]] (gov. [[1879]]-[[1882]]) and others to simply build up Tokyo piecemeal, one project at a time. Construction of Western-style buildings had begun as early as the [[Bakumatsu]] period, and the [[Ginza]], flanked by Shinbashi Station and by the Foreign Concessions, was built up into a rather modern commercial area filled with gaslamps, shopping arcades of two-story Georgian-style brick buildings, and the first sidewalks in Japan, as early as 1872-[[1877]];<ref>Fujitani, 71.</ref> however, many of the most significant municipal, national, and Imperial structures were only first completed in the 1880s. These include the [[Tokyo National Museum]], designed in its first red-brick incarnation by [[Josiah Conder]] and completed in [[1881]], the [[Imperial Japanese Army]] [[General Staff Office]], completed that same year by [[Giovanni Vincenzo Cappelletti]], and the [[Rokumeikan]], also designed by Conder, and completed in [[1883]] on the former grounds of a secondary residence of the [[Shimazu clan]] of [[Satsuma han]].<ref>[[Ichioka Masakazu]], ''[[Tokugawa seiseiroku]]'', 1889, reprinted Tokyo: Heibonsha (1989), 29.; Dallas Finn, "Reassessing the Rokumeikan," in Ellen Conant (ed.), ''Challenging Past and Present: The Metamorphosis of Nineteenth-Century Japanese Art'', University of Hawaii Press (2006), 227-239.</ref> The Rokumeikan, among other sites, quickly reached their heights as centers of Western-style elite gatherings (e.g. dinner parties, luncheons, ballroom dancing) during that decade.<ref>Finn, op. cit.</ref>
[[Fukuzawa Yukichi]] was among the most prominent of a series of officials who called in [[1883]] for a coordinated plan for the city as a whole, and for a focus on the palace, criticizing the efforts of former Tokyo governor [[Matsuda Michiyuki]] (gov. [[1879]]-[[1882]]) and others to simply build up Tokyo piecemeal, one project at a time. Construction of Western-style buildings had begun as early as the [[Bakumatsu]] period, and the [[Ginza]], flanked by Shinbashi Station and by the Foreign Concessions, was built up into a rather modern commercial area filled with gaslamps, shopping arcades of two-story Georgian-style brick buildings, and the first sidewalks in Japan, as early as 1872-[[1877]];<ref>Fujitani, 71.</ref> however, many of the most significant municipal, national, and Imperial structures were only first completed in the 1880s. These include the [[Tokyo National Museum]], designed in its first red-brick incarnation by [[Josiah Conder]] and completed in [[1881]], the [[Imperial Japanese Army]] [[General Staff Office]], completed that same year by [[Giovanni Vincenzo Cappelletti]], and the [[Rokumeikan]], also designed by Conder, and completed in [[1883]] on the former grounds of a secondary residence of the [[Shimazu clan]] of [[Satsuma han]].<ref>[[Ichioka Masakazu]], ''[[Tokugawa seiseiroku]]'', 1889, reprinted Tokyo: Heibonsha (1989), 29.; Dallas Finn, "Reassessing the Rokumeikan," in Ellen Conant (ed.), ''Challenging Past and Present: The Metamorphosis of Nineteenth-Century Japanese Art'', University of Hawaii Press (2006), 227-239.</ref> The Rokumeikan, among other sites, quickly reached their heights as centers of Western-style elite gatherings (e.g. dinner parties, luncheons, ballroom dancing) during that decade.<ref>Finn, op. cit.</ref>
In [[1884]], Tokyo governor [[Yoshikawa Akimasa]] submitted a proposal which was perhaps the first to highlight the accessibility - by road, rail, canals, and bridges - of the city, and the first to make particular considerations regarding the place of the Imperial Palace within the city. Yoshikawa advocated a series of four grand boulevards radiating outwards from the palace, which would provide thoroughfares for Imperial progresses, and for the comings and goings of foreign dignitaries. That same year, [[Yamazaki Naotane]] proposed clustering the chief government buildings near the palace, rather than having them scattered across the city. In accordance with the suggestions of Yamazaki and others at that time, Tokyo's government buildings remain today clustered in the Kasumigaseki area, while the Marunouchi area was given over to commercial development.<ref>Fujitani, 75-76.</ref>
The shift in attitude begun around 1883 towards desiring a modern national capital developed according to a coordinated plan, and with an impressive Imperial Palace at its center, reached a certain culmination in [[1889]]. In that year, the Imperial family took up residence in the [[Tokyo Imperial Palace]], which was completed the previous year after fires destroyed the previous palace (Edo castle) in [[1873]]. The Palace was officially designated an "Imperial Palace" (''kyûjô''), and the city, described for many years by foreign observers and Japanese alike as possessing an empty center, once more had a visible and monumental symbol of political power at its center. Parades and other events surrounding the celebration of the promulgation of the [[Meiji Constitution]] later that year are sometimes cited as the first major modern national ceremonies to be held in the streets of Tokyo. Celebrations of the thirtieth anniversary of the relocation of the capital, held in [[1898]], were another particularly notable event in the evolution of Tokyo's modern & national(ist) festivals.
The [[Akasaka Detached Palace]] and the Hyôkeikan of the Tokyo National Museum, key examples of a later phase of [[Meiji period architecture]], were completed in [[1909]].
The [[Akasaka Detached Palace]] and the Hyôkeikan of the Tokyo National Museum, key examples of a later phase of [[Meiji period architecture]], were completed in [[1909]].