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- In 1872 the first railway was open between Tokyo and Yoko�hama and was financed by floating bonds on the London money market. On the inaugural day Emperor Meiji rode aboard a private rail coach. The line was 29 kilometres long and 53 min�utes in duration. In 1874 a line was completed between Osaka and Kobe. Initially foreign crews were employed as engineers, but by 1879 Japanese workers were operating the trains. By the late Meiji period, trains were electrified and cities were installed with electric street lighting and street cars. The first trolley cars, imported from the United States, were seen at the Third Na�tional Exposition held in 1890.
The improvement of transportation was extended to Japan's waters as well. To meet conditions in the foreign trade treaties Japan had to build lighthouses, set up lightships and set out buoys. They also upgraded the inland waterways and soon began using steamships and ferries.
The first telegraph through overhead lines was installed be�tween Tokyo and Yokohama in 1869. Telephones were first introduced into Japan in 1877, and in 1890 the service was inaugurated in the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama; there were 197 users. The first long-distance service was opened between To�kyo and Osaka in 1899. 19�6 an undersea telecommunications
cable was laid between Japan and the United States.
Architecture
Prior to the Restoration virtually all structures were one or two stories high and made of wooden frame construction, which made them prone to fire. In early Meiji there were some com�mercial buildings, houses and churches built for foreigners in the open ports of Nagasaki and Yokohama. They had an out�ward appearance of the Western-style, but were still essentially Japanese.
During the Meiji period the first European-style structures built were the British Legation and the Tsukiji Hoterukan (1868), which was a Western-style hotel designed by Shimizu Kisuke II. However, Japanese carpenters utilized traditional techniques in their construction. The first pure Western architecture was erected after the Great Fire of 1872 in the Ginza commercial thoroughfare of Tokyo. The Ginza district was chosen as the new
centre of civilization and enlightenment. English architects like Thomas Waters and Josiah Conder were active in reconstructing the destroyed district with brick structures, in what came to be known as Londontown or Bricktown. The Victorian-style brick buildings, wide brick or cobblestone streets as well as the cherry and maple trees planted along the well-ordered thoroughfare, offered an incredible and exotic visual contrast to the old, nar�row cramped streets. In 1874 the streets were illuminated by gaslights. The first experiments with electric lighting were at�tempted in 1878 but were not very successful. However, by 1882 electric lights in front of Ginza offices were drawing evening crowds.
Of the two English architects Conder, in particular, was noted for his grand style. His greatest accomplishment was the Roku- meikan (1883), which was designed as a place for the Japanese elite to meet foreign guests to show off the level of civilization they had attained.
Because Japan is subject to frequent earthquakes, it was soon discovered that brick and stone Western-style buildings were unsafe. In 1895 the first earthquake-proof structures with steel frames appeared. In the 1890s Japan's first skyscraper, the Ry- ounkaku or "cloud scraper" of Asakusa was completed. It was a twelve story octagonal red brick building which incorporated an imported American elevator (the first in the land). It quickly became a major amusement centre for the Japanese masses.
The stone and steel combination was soon found to be more suitable for bridge construction also. The traditional wooden bridges could not sustain the new heavier vehicle traffic. One of the most spectacular steel bridges with a decorated superstruc�ture was the Azuma bridge built in 1882.
By the late 19th century Japanese architects who had studied abroad began designing and erecting a number of very impres�sive new government buildings between 1887-1911. Much of this architecture was in the Renaissance style, and included the Bank of Japan completed in stone and brick in 1896, the Akasaka Palace modelled after the Palace of Versailles in 1909, and the Imperial Theatre in 1911.
Japan's urban architecture changed greatly during the Meiji period, but rural structures continued to be built using tradi�tional methods and were slow to change.
MEIJI / 15
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