Hiroshima's Genbaku: Story of a Skeleton

by Brent Katte | Kansai Time Out, August 2008

Everybody knows about Hiroshima. A lot of people visit. And everybody who goes there, goes there; the genbaku, or A-Bomb Dome. An international icon and World Heritage site, the Dome commands a steady stream of visitors day in and out, regardless of weather or season. Many people have seen it, stark and haunting. Most will remember. But not many know much about the building itself, the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall; its brief, colorful history overshadowed by the bomb it takes its nickname from.

By the end of the twentieth century, Hiroshima had become an important manufacturing center. With the birth of Kure city and its Naval Arsenal to the southeast (later to build the Yamato battleship) and the onset of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, military industry galvanized local production and Hiroshima quickly grew in size, wealth, and regional importance. As the city found its new economic feet, authorities sought ways to improve core infrastructure. One solution was an exhibition hall to further the interests of local industry.

The project for the new Commercial Exhibition Hall began in 1911, but it wasn’t until 1913 that newly appointed governor Sukeyuki Terada, recently transferred from Miyagi prefecture, selected Czech architect Jan Letzel as head designer. Letzel had just designed the Matsushima Park Hotel in Miyagi, a bold structure fusing Japanese temple aesthetics with neoclassical European Baroque. Terada commissioned Letzel to design the hall as a stylistic continuation of the hotel, and Letzel made his first trip to Hiroshima later that year.

Born in 1880 in Bohemia, then part of Austria-Hungary, Jan Letzel was a Czech architect who worked primarily abroad, mostly in Japan. He studied under Jan Kotera, the father of modern Czech architecture, who himself studied under Oto Wagner, founder of the Vienna Secessionists and pioneer of modern Austrian design. Letzel spent 10 years in Japan, long-interested in the Asian aesthetics that had shaped Art Noveau and were to further influence Art Deco. From 1907 until 1917, he created more than 15 buildings in Japan, including hotels, schools, hospitals, and private residences. After the Kanto earthquake of 1923, he returned home to Bohemia, where he suffered from ill health until his premature death at 45 in Prague.

Letzel’s most famous building, both before and after the bomb, was the Industrial Promotion Hall. His design was a fusion of Neo-Baroque, a decorative, expressive style centered on curved lines and bold masses, often characterized by domes and colonnades; and Secessionist, a variation of Art Noveau begun in Austria that highlighted geometrical decoration and ornamentation. The result was bold, innovative, and truly original.

Completed in 1915, the Hall was a three-story, brick-frame building with an upper section of ferro-iron set aside the eastern bank of the Motoyasugawa river in downtown Hiroshima. The exterior was a gray composite of cement and mortar. In the center of the structure was a five-story atrium topped with a massive oval dome of copper plating. The dome itself was 4 meters high and 8 meters at its longest axis. The Hall’s total area was 1023 m2, and its floor space 3069 m2. Offices took up most of the first floor, while the second and third floors were used for exhibitions. The surrounding property included both a Western and Japanese garden. As most city buildings at the time were wooden and rarely exceeded two floors, the government’s futuristic project quickly became a local landmark and grew renowned among citizens of western Honshu.

Originally named the Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition Hall after opening in 1915, the building would have its name changed twice before becoming the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall in 1933. In its brief 30 year history, it served in its original capacity and as an auxiliary headquarters for branches of the Imperial government during the war. At the time of the bombing the building was exactly 30 years and one day old.

On August 6th, 1945, at 8:15 AM, the Enola Gay, a USAF B-29 Superfortress, dropped the world’s first nuclear bomb, nicknamed “Little Boy” on the city of Hiroshima. The target was the T-shaped bridge connecting Aioi-dori with Nakajima, the island now better known as Peace Memorial Park. Almost a direct hit, the bomb detonated just 300 meters southeast of its target at a height of 580 meters above the Shima hospital. The Hall, almost directly underneath ground zero, escaped most of the shockwave and 1700 KPH lateral winds generated by the 4000 degree fireball. Almost immediately, the 50 kilograms of Uranium 235 leveled almost 100% of Hiroshima’s buildings within a 2 km2 radius, leaving only few structures standing. The Hall, due to its location and construction, was one of them.

As city reconstruction began in earnest, opinion was divided as to whether to raze the remains of the “A-Bomb Dome”, as it was now being called, or preserve it in commemoration. Debate continued until the City Council voted for preservation in 1966. After that , a fund-raising drive was held and the Dome’s first reinforcement commenced. In 1989, another fund-raiser was held for a second round of restoration. Shortly after, citizens began a campaign that eventually led to the national government petitioning the World Heritage Committee of the United Nations for the registration of the Dome as a World Heritage Site. In December 1995, the Committee agreed, basing their judgment on Criteria VI, that the Dome “...(is) directly associated with events of outstanding universal significance...”. Of course, no one who’s ever been to Peace Park and stood collecting their thoughts in front of Letzel’s masterpiece would have doubted that. The A-Bomb Dome, going on 93 years now, is still making history, one person at a time.

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