Changes

The palace compound in its current location dates back to XX. Though many of the aspects of its layout draw upon the layout standards of the Heian Imperial Palace (and its Nara and Tang predecessors), the layout of the city no longer interacts with the palace complex as it originally did. The Suzakumon no longer faces a major north-south avenue, and there is no longer a street called Suzaku-ôji.

The palace compound in its current location dates back to XX. Though many of the aspects of its layout draw upon the layout standards of the Heian Imperial Palace (and its Nara and Tang predecessors), the layout of the city no longer interacts with the palace complex as it originally did. The Suzakumon no longer faces a major north-south avenue, and there is no longer a street called Suzaku-ôji.

[[Kawaji Toshiakira]] oversaw the reconstruction of the palace in the 1850s.<ref>Takashi Fujitani, ''Splendid Monarchy'', UC Press (1998), 68.</ref>

[[Kawaji Toshiakira]] oversaw the reconstruction of the palace in the 1850s.<ref>Fujitani, 68.</ref>

The palace compound, including the main palace (''Kindairi-gosho''), the ''Sento-gosho'' formerly inhabited by retired emperors, and the ''Ômiya-gosho'' which formerly housed secondary imperial consorts, dowager empresses, and retired emperors, was used in the early years of the [[Meiji period]] as the site for a number of grand exhibitions and expos (''hakurankai''). Between [[1869]], when the [[Meiji Emperor]] departed Kyoto for Tokyo, and [[1880]] or so, little effort was made by the [[Meiji government]] to maintain, preserve, or otherwise employ these Imperial sites for national purposes of any sort, and some in fact began to fall into serious disrepair. In the 1880s, however, the government began to take a much more active position on these Imperial sites, and the city of Kyoto as a whole, as sites and symbols of the Imperial past, and thus important tools for constructing and conveying a modern Emperor-centered nationalism. The entire 220-acre palace compound (''gyoen'') was converted into what it remains today: a public park with the Kindairi-gosho, Sento-gosho, Ômiya-gosho, and a number of gardens, ponds, shrines, and so forth maintained inside, but with many of the other buildings which once stood there removed, leaving large open graveled areas. Historian [[Takashi Fujitani]] describes it as "not unlike a public museum in its display of objects that were to be appreciated as the true representations of history," and figures it within a broader "museumification of Kyoto" effected at this time.<ref>Fujitani, 60-61.</ref>

The palace compound, including the main palace (''Kindairi-gosho''), the ''Sento-gosho'' formerly inhabited by retired emperors, and the ''Ômiya-gosho'' which formerly housed secondary imperial consorts, dowager empresses, and retired emperors, was used in the early years of the [[Meiji period]] as the site for a number of grand exhibitions and expos (''hakurankai''). Between [[1869]], when the [[Meiji Emperor]] departed Kyoto for Tokyo, and [[1880]] or so, little effort was made by the [[Meiji government]] to maintain, preserve, or otherwise employ these Imperial sites for national purposes of any sort, and some in fact began to fall into serious disrepair. In the 1880s, however, the government began to take a much more active position on these Imperial sites, and the city of Kyoto as a whole, as sites and symbols of the Imperial past, and thus important tools for constructing and conveying a modern Emperor-centered nationalism. The entire 220-acre palace compound (''gyoen'') was converted into what it remains today: a public park with the Kindairi-gosho, Sento-gosho, Ômiya-gosho, and a number of gardens, ponds, shrines, and so forth maintained inside, but with many of the other buildings which once stood there removed, leaving large open graveled areas. Historian [[Takashi Fujitani]] describes it as "not unlike a public museum in its display of objects that were to be appreciated as the true representations of history," and figures it within a broader "museumification of Kyoto" effected at this time.<ref>Fujitani, 60-61.</ref>