C O N T E X T 9 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 6 25 John Hinchliffe Japan and its industrial heritage A cultural exchange visit to Japan earlier this year promoted the need to protect industrial heritage and found that Japanese conservation is not always what it seems. With the ubiquitous presence of Japanese manufactured goods in our daily lives, it is hard to imagine that Japan arrived very late on the scene of global industrialisation. But as a result of its policy of isolation from 1615 until the mid-19th century, Japan had no significant organised methods of production or revolutionary industrial technology until the second half of the 19th century. Even then, it relied heavily on imported technology for both building construction and manufacturing from Europe and America. While Japan has long been a producer of raw silk, and has spun and woven silk domestically since its introduction from China, its most impressive early industrial spinning mill, at Tomioka in Gunma Prefecture (about 100 miles North West of Tokyo), dates only from 1870, compared toThomas Cotchett’s three-storey silk spinning mill in Derby of 1702. Lombe’s Mill, also in Derby, dates back to 1721, when it was of five storeys and in Italian style. Although Lombe’s Mill was substantially rebuilt in 1910, it is included within the Derwent Valley Mills world heritage site for its place at the beginning of the phenomenon that was the industrial revolution. In 1853 America became the first country to trade with Japan. Britain was not far behind, signing a trade treaty with Japan in 1855. By 1867 the Liverpool agents Butterfield and Squire had opened an office in Yokohama, primarily to arrange trade for the Ocean Steamship Company of Liverpool. They opened an office in Kobe in 1887 and the Blue Funnel ships of the Ocean Steamship Company then dominated Liverpool’s trade with Japan. From 1883, its ships were making regular weekly visits to Japan, delivering manufactured goods such as rail tracks, and bringing back tea, silk and general merchandise. Until recently, Japan’s early industrial heritage was little valued as a heritage resource within that country.A nationwide investigation into ‘Japanese ModernisationPeriod Monuments’ began only in 1990. Prior to that, most early railroad facilities, port facilities, power plants and iron and silk mills had been abandoned or destroyed without any records being kept. However, knowledgeable local communities and academics, led by Professor Saito of Tsukuba University and Professor Inaba of the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties in Tokyo, do place great cultural importance on the early manifestations of Japan’s industrial heritage. Professors Saito and Inaba were in a party of seven heritage experts from Japan who undertook a whistleA redundant silk weaving mill at Maebashi
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgyMjA=