Akihabara and around - The Rough Guide to Tokyo - page 55

cathedral , wonderfully incongruous in its mid-Tokyo location, the city's prime
bookshop area, and prestigious Meiji University , home to a diverting museum .

Nikolai Cathedral
χίϥΠಊ , Nikorai-jō • 4-1-3 Kanda Surugadai, Chiyoda-ku • Tues-Sun: April−Sept 1-4pm; Oct-March 1-3.30pm • Suggested
donation ¥300 • T 03 3295 6879 • Shin-Ochanomizu station
If you're in the area in the afternoon, pay a visit to the Russian Orthodox Nikolai
Cathedral . Founded by Archbishop Nikolai Kasatkin, who came to Japan in 1861 as
chaplain to the Russian consulate in Hokkaidō, the cathedral took seven years to
complete (1884-91). The plans were sent from Russia, but British architect Josiah
Conder (see box below) gets most of the credit.

Jimbōchō
ਆอொ
The lively student centre of Jimbōchō is home to dozens of secondhand bookshops ,
mostly clustered around the intersection of Yasukuni-dōri and Hakusan-dōri, a spot
that's also easily reached from Kitanomaru-kōen (see p.43). The best bookshops are
along the south side of Yasukuni-dōri in the blocks either side of Jimbōchō subway
station, where racks of dog-eared novels and textbooks sit outside shops stacked high
with dusty tomes. Most are in Japanese, but some specialize in English-language books:
try Kitazawa Shōten (see p.190).

3

Meiji University Museum
໌࣏େֶത෺ؗ , Meiji Daigaku Hakubutsukan • 1-1 Kanda Surugadai, Chiyoda-ku • Daily 10am-5pm • Free • T 03 3296 4448,
W www.meiji.ac.jp/museum • Jimbōchō Station
he Meiji University Museum sits off Meidai-dōri in the basement of the university's
Academy Common Building. The most interesting - and spine-chilling - exhibits are
to be found in the “criminal zone”, and come courtesy of the university's original 1881
incarnation as a law school. After breaking you in gently with examples of Edo-era laws
and edicts, the displays move on to the tools used by police to arrest miscreants: goads,
the U-shaped “military fork”, and the delightfully named “sleeve entangler”. Then it's a
rapid descent into prints showing instruments of torture and methods of punishment,
including some truly gruesome ways of carrying out the death penalty. The other two
zones cover archeology and traditional crafts, and overall there's a fair amount of
information in English.

JOSIAH CONDER
Of the many Western architects invited by the Meiji government to Japan to help it modernize,
Josiah Conder had the greatest impact. When he arrived in 1877, a freshly graduated
25-year-old, his position was to teach architecture at what would become the Faculty of
Engineering at Tokyo University. By the time he died in Tokyo in 1920 he had designed over
fifty major buildings including the original Imperial Museum at Ueno, and the Nikolai
Cathedral in Ochanomizu. His crowning glory is generally considered to be the Rokumeikan
reception hall in Hibiya, a synthesis of Japanese and Western architectural styles. This was torn
down in 1940, but a model can be seen in the Edo-Tokyo Museum (see p.75). His students
Tatsuno Kingo and Katayama Tōkuma went on to design Tokyo Station and the Akasaka
Detached Palace respectively.
In the West, Conder is perhaps best known for his study of Japanese gardens and his
1893 book Landscape Gardens in Japan . Kyū Iwasaki-tei in Ueno (see p.64) and Kyū Furukawa
near Komagome (see p.132) are two houses he designed, with gardens which are open
to the public. His Mitsubishi Ichigokan building (see p.47) has also been resurrected in
recent years.