Meiji-mura

Meiji-mura (博物館明治村, Hakubutsukan Meiji-mura, "Meiji Village Museum") is an open-air architectural museum/theme park in Inuyama, near Nagoya in Aichi prefecture, Japan. It was opened on March 18, 1965. The museum preserves historic buildings from Japan's Meiji (1867–1912), Taisho (1912–1926), and early Shōwa (1926–1989) periods. Over 60 historical buildings have been moved and reconstructed onto 1 square kilometre (250 acres) of rolling hills alongside Lake Iruka. The most noteworthy building there is the reconstructed main entrance and lobby of Frank Lloyd Wright's landmark Imperial Hotel, which originally stood in Tokyo from 1923 to 1967, when the main structure was demolished to make way for a new, larger version of the hotel.

Background

The Meiji era was a period of rapid change in Japan. After centuries of isolation, Japan began to incorporate ideas from the west, including building styles and construction techniques. Meiji-mura's goal is to preserve these historic early examples of western architecture mixed with Japanese construction techniques and materials. Incidentally, many of the buildings were saved from demolition during the post World War II period, another time of transition and rapid progress in Japanese history.