This is a pamphlet I wrote in 1991, revised and enhanced.
It was a study of then published software named "PageMaker".
I found .txt formatted files for "History", "01Central Area" and "02Sanaruko" in my HD.
Other files were saved in .pmd and there is no way to open them. I shall replace them with newer findings.
I will try to write them after Ando Hiroshige's "53 stations along Tokaido". People in older ages have no way than walk on their foot and this brings you of so many things than go on cars or shinkansen. If you walk on your feet, there are so many findings about what has changed from Hiroshige days and what don't cchange.
I feel happy if you copy and use it freely as a part or whole. I owe no responsibity from it's quotation.
7.1 2021
KOYAMA Keiichiro
〒430-0946
109-12 Motoshiro-cho
Hamamatusi
JAPAN
古山恵一郎
〒430-0946
浜松市元城町109-12
tel: 070-3140-1432
fax: 053-488-8433
e-mail:
ask@tcp-ip.or.jp
History
1 Central Area
__contd.
2 walk to Sanaruko
3 Imagire
4 Arai
5 Hashimoto
6 Washidu
7 Shiomizaka
8 Futagawa
e1 Kakegawa
e2 Kotonomama
e3 Sagara
01 Central
Hiroshige's "Hamamtsu" shows a castle tower though, there had never been such structure throughout YedoJidai. More important for Tokugawa clan was Otanjouba, birthplace of the second shougunate Hidetada.
1. Around the central area
It is nice to walk through the places I will introduce to you. On foot, it can be done in half a day but preferrably spend a whole day. The land with its ups and downs makes it hard to ride a bicycle in this area. This sloping of the land may be one of the reasons which make it difficult to know the topography of Hamamatsu for newcommers, but walking through the hights and niches surely will make you very familiar with Hamamatsu.
1. Fukkou-kinenkan
2. Tokokaze Touge
3. Banker's Assn. Bldg.
4. Cha no Yu no Ido
5. Gardens of Kamoe-ji
6. Kamo no Mabuchi
7. Small house at Kamoe
8. Akiha Zaka
9 Hamamatsu Jou
1-1. Fukkoukinenkan
Fukkoukinenkan is in Togi machi ie. The Sharpner's quareter in Yedo Era. At the beggining of Meiji, Togi machi used as the Central Business District. City Office and other municipal buildings lined the streets.
Opposite of the street stand the main gate-Torii of Gosha Jinja.
Fukkoukinenkan is the Museum of the Hamamatsu City which shows the reconstruction after the damage from World War II. Reconstruction was also a creation of modern urban systems. Before the war, urbanization was very limited and the newcomers from the rural area sprawled beyond the towns and cities. As for Hamamatsu, planned streets were rare other than the Tokaido Highway, it's backstreets designed in Tokugawa days. Miyuki-dori or Kajimachi-dori and Hirokoji connecting Tokaido and the railway station are the largest new streets completed since the Meiji Era.
Department stores like Matsubishi and other modern buildings were constructed along these streets and Tamachi-dori. But for the rest of the city, most of the buildings were built from wood and one or two stories. Air raids were fatal for such buildings. Photographs taken in 1945 show flat earth and just a few multi-storied concrete buildings in the center of the city.
In this country where they live in houses of wood and paper, houses could'nt help but burnt down. "Fires and quarrels FLOURISH in Yedo". An old saying. They built houses and the whole city on the flat earth again. Reconstruction linked to the swift industrialization through the 50's and 60's. Motorcycles, once the only personal powered transport aid had been replaced with the car. When the Urban Reconstruction Plan copleted in 1988, streets were choking with an incredibly incresed number of cars.
1-2.Tokokaze Touge
Ojizosan is the guardian of the border: mountainpass, river, this world and the other world etc. Up the North side of Gosha Jinja, you can find a Ojizosan at the back of Main hall of Shinzoji Temple, below the graveyard.
Downtown in Japan has a different meaning from that of western cities or some Korean cities like Seoul . "Yamanote" or "Up the hills" had been the site for the residences of the Samurai and "Shitamachi" or "Down-Town" for the Chonin, the rest of the towners.
In Hamamatsu, the land ascend to the west and descend to the east from Renjaku-dori wich once was the Tokaido Highway. Generally, the East side was assigned to merchants and the West side to the Samurai, Buddist temples and craftsmen working for the castle. Daiku-machi was assigned to the carpenters, Togi-machi to the sword sharpeners, Kouya-machi to the dyers. The street from the Fukkou Kinenkan in Togi-Machi along the east entrance of the City library to the city hall recalls the sight of a street once lined with Samurai Yasiki. Private gardens in such estates used to be cared after by master gardeners.
Beyond such estates were the green hills waving up and down. In older times, perhaps nearly 1,000 years ago, it is said there was a path to the west and on the way a pass named "Tokokaze-Touge" ("Ever Windy Pass") somewhere around this area. Even on a calm hot day in summer, a cool breeze should refresh travellers on that pass.
I think the place may be on the way up the north side of Gosha-Jinja.
1-3. Bankers' Association Bldg.
Westward from Zaza, you will find the Bankers' Association Building on your left. This beautiful Mediterranean styled building was designed by Nakamura Yoshihei and completed in 1930.
Nakamura, the son of a rich farmer was born in Hamamatsu but studied and had his firm in Tokyo and Seoul. He also designed the building now used as Shizuoka Bank-Hamamatsu Branch at Tamachi.
1-4. Cha-no-Yu-no-Ido
It is said there was a fountain up the valley of Mikumi-cho and it's water thought to be the best was served for the tea celemony in the castle. Today, the foutain itself has long been lost. But the small size of the valley with its greenery is still surviving aroud Bodaiji today and a little secluded location of the area reminds me of the taste of elegant persons of those days.
1-5.Gardens of Kamoe-ji
from Chikuzan Teizou Den - On Classical Gardening - by Ritouken Akisato (1828)
Natiolal Library
In Japan, there were no "public " parks like today untill the Meiji era. Gardens in large estates opened to the public with the mercy of the lords and high rankers. Buddist temples had large domains around their buildings to please the people and bring them to love nature. So those temples were located on the outskirt of old Hamamtsu.
Kamoe-ji, one of the largest temples in Hamamatsu had been surrounded by green woods utill the industrialization begins and the population rushed in. The large domain of the temple was reduced during the Meiji Era and part of it is now serves as the site for a kindergarten and parking lots but it has been famous for its gardens and illustrations of the temple can be found in a 19th century book titled "Chikuzan Teizou Den".
01 Central Area contd