旧岩崎邸庭園(Kyu-Iwasaki-tei Gardens)/ 台東区 (Taito-ku)

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It is located near Ueno Garden and just next to Tokyo university. Very convenience location but quiet atmosphere.  When you enter into small entrance you see an uphill road.

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And face a beautiful architecture. It was the main residence of Iwasaki Hisaya, the 3rd president of Mitsubishi and the eldest son of Iwasaki Yataro, the founder of the group.

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Iwasaki Garden is a combination of Japanese-style and Western Style structures, built in 1896.

Originally the residence consisted of twenty building on more than 49,500 square meters of land. Today, however, only the Shoin-Style Japanese Hall (Hiroma), Western-style residence and billiard hall remain.

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You can enter into both of the building but taking Photos is prohibited. I recommend to you to stop by there and enter into the building. It is really historic and you can understand how big the Mitsubishi Family was.

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Western residence was completed in 1896 by the design of Josiah Condor. Magnificent decorations of the 17th century Jacobean style are seen everywhere, along with the British Renaissance style and Islamic motifs.

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The south side of the building is a columned veranda (following the colonial style developed in colonies in Southeast Asia), and columns in the 1st floor and 2nd floor have features of Tuscan and Ionian styles respectively. 

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The Japanese building connected to the western-style building had far big scale when completed. It is reported that its construction was done by Okawa Kijiyuro who had engaged in building of many residences for magnates of political and business circles as master carpenter.

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The billiard room designed by Joliah Condor is built in some distance from the western-style building as detached house.

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Unlike the Jacobean-style western building, it is built like mountain lodges in Switzerland, which was very rare in Japan those days.

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In the Edo period, it used to be a residence of the domain Sakakibara family of Echigo-Takada clan, that was succeeded by Makino Family of Maizuru clan in near Meiji Period.

 

 

 

2015-09-20 | Posted in TokyoNo Comments » 

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