Ginza and around - The Rough Guide to Tokyo - page 46

Meiji Seimei-kan
໌࣏ੜ໋ؗ • 2-1-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku • Sat & Sun 11am-5pm • Free • Nijūbashimae or Yūrakuchō stations
A block west of Brick Square, the 1934 Meiji Seimei-kan , part of the newer My Plaza
building, is home to the Meiji Yasuda life insurance company. On weekends you're
allowed in to admire the highly polished marble floors and plaster detailing. Upstairs is
a parquet-floored conference room, where the Allied Council of Japan met in the
aftermath of World War II, and a dining room complete with dumbwaiters.

2 Idemitsu Museum of Arts

ग़ޫඒज़ؗ , Idemitsu Bijutsukan • 9F Teigeki Building, 3-1-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku • Tues-Sun 10am-5pm, Fri until 7pm • ¥1000 •
T 03 5777 8600, W idemitsu.com/museum • Hibiya or Yūrakuchō stations
Sitting above the Imperial Theatre, the Idemitsu Museum of Arts houses a magnificent
collection of mostly Japanese art, though only a tiny proportion is on show at any one
time. The collection includes many historically important pieces, ranging from fine
examples of early Jōmon (10,000 BC-300 BC) pottery to Zen Buddhist calligraphy,
hand-painted scrolls, richly gilded folding screens and elegant, late seventeenth-century
ukiyo-e paintings. The museum also owns valuable collections of Chinese and Korean
ceramics, as well as slightly incongruous works by French painter Georges Rouault and
American artist Sam Francis.

Yūrakuchō
༗ָொ
South of Marunouchi lies Yūrakuchō , home to the main JNTO tourist of ce (see p.38)
and the Tokyo International Forum ( ౦ژࠃࡍϑΥʔϥϜ ), a stunning creation by American
architect Rafael Viñoly, which hosts concerts and conventions, plus the Ōedo Antique
Market (see p.188). The boat-shaped main hall consists of a 60m-high atrium sheathed
in 2600 sheets of earthquake-resistant glass, with a ceiling ribbed like a ship's hull - it
looks magical at night.

GINZA GLITZ
Ginza , the “place where silver is minted”, took its name after Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu started
making coins here in the early 1600s. It was a happy association - Ginza's Chūō-dōri grew to
become Tokyo's most stylish shopping street. The unusually regular pattern of streets here is
due to British architect Thomas Waters, who was given the task of creating a less combustible
city after a fire in 1872 destroyed virtually all of old, wooden Ginza. His “Bricktown”, as it soon
became known, proved an instant local tourist attraction, with its rows of two-storey brick
houses, tree-lined avenues, gaslights and brick pavements.
Most of the first businesses here dealt in foreign wares, and in no time Ginza became the
centre of all that was modern, Western and, therefore, fashionable. Bricktown itself didn't
survive the Great Earthquake of 1923, but by then Ginza's status was well established. In the
1930s the height of sophistication was simply to stroll around Ginza, and the practice still
continues, particularly on Sunday afternoons, when Chūō-dōri is closed to tra c and everyone
turns out for a spot of window-shopping.
It's still possible to hunt down some of Ginza's older establishments. A number of
venerable emporia cluster round the Ginza Yon-chōme junction. Wakō , now an
exclusive department store, started life over a century ago as the stall of a young,
enterprising watchmaker who developed a line called Seikō (meaning “precision”); its
clock tower, built in 1894, is one of Ginza's most enduring landmarks and the little watch
company is now world famous. Immediately north of Wakō on Chūō-dōri, Kimuraya
bakery was founded in 1874, while Mikimoto Pearl (see p.193) opened next door a
couple of decades later. South of the crossing, just beyond the cylindrical, glass San'ai
Building, Kyūkyodō (see p.189) has been selling traditional paper, calligraphy brushes and
inkstones since 1800.