The , originally the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, and now commonly called the Genbaku Dome, , is part of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

and was designated a

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for ...

in 1996. The ruin of the hall serves as a memorial to the over 140,000 people who were killed in the

atomic bombing of Hiroshima The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the onl ...

at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. It is permanently kept in a state of arrested ruin as a reminder of the destructive effects of

nuclear warfare Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear ...

History

The Product Exhibition Hall building was originally designed by Czech architect

Jan Letzel Jan Letzel (April 9, 1880 – December 26, 1925) was a Czech architect, most famous for designing a building in Hiroshima whose ruins are now the A-Bomb Dome or Peace Memorial. Biography Jan Letzel was born in the town of Náchod, Bohemia. ...

. The design included a distinctive dome at the top of the building. It was completed in April 1915 and was named the ''Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition'' (HMI). It was formally opened to the public in August that year. In 1921, the name was changed to the ''Hiroshima Prefectural Products Exhibition Hall'', and again, in 1933, to the ''Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall'' (広島県産業奨励館 Hiroshima-ken Sangyo Shourei-kan). The building was located in the large business district next to the

Aioi Bridge The is an unusual "T"-shaped three-way bridge in Hiroshima, Japan. The original bridge, constructed in 1932, was the aiming point {{Unreferenced, date=April 2007 In field artillery, the accuracy of indirect fire depends on the use of aiming po ...

and was primarily used for art and educational exhibitions.

Atomic bombing

At 8:15 a.m. on 6 August 1945, the first

atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

to be used in war was dropped by the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

from the ''

Enola Gay The ''Enola Gay'' () is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. On 6 August 1945, piloted by Tibbets and Robert A. Lewis during the final stages of World War II, it ...

'', a

B-29 The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the B-17 Fl ...

bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an air ...

. The force of the atomic bomb effectively obliterated the city of

. Earlier, on 25 July, General

Carl Spaatz Carl Andrew Spaatz (born Spatz; June 28, 1891 – July 14, 1974), nicknamed "Tooey", was an American World War II general. As commander of Strategic Air Forces in Europe in 1944, he successfully pressed for the bombing of the enemy's oil produc ...

, commander of the United States Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific, received orders to deliver a "special bomb" attack on selected cities in Japan. The first target city chosen was Hiroshima, which had an important port on southern

Honshu , historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island s ...

and was headquarters of the Japanese Second General Army with 40,000

military personnel Military personnel are members of the state's armed forces. Their roles, pay, and obligations differ according to their military branch (army, navy, marines, air force, space force, and coast guard), rank ( officer, non-commissioned office ...

in the city. It was also the only large city that was not known to have a POW camp. The

bomb A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechan ...

was assembled in secret and loaded on the ''Enola Gay''. The bomb, code named "

Little Boy "Little Boy" was the type of atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 during World War II, making it the first nuclear weapon used in warfare. The bomb was dropped by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress ''Enola Gay'' p ...

", possessed a force equivalent to 15,000 tons of

TNT Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...

. The plane dropped Little Boy over the city at 8:15:17 a.m local time on 6 August 1945. About 43 seconds after being dropped, it detonated over the city, missing its target by . Intended for the

, the bomb instead exploded directly over the

Shima Hospital is a Japanese hospital, now clinic, in Hiroshima, Japan. It was the exact location where the atomic bombing of Hiroshima took place on August 6, 1945. Shima Hospital is considered to be ground zero. In 1948, the hospital was rebuilt from the g ...

, which was very near to the Genbaku Dome. Because the explosion was almost directly overhead, the building was able to retain its shape. The building's vertical columns were able to resist the nearly vertical downward force of the blast, and parts of the concrete and brick outer walls remained intact. The center of the blast occurred horizontally and vertically from the Dome. Everyone inside the building was killed instantly. The building's durability can also be attributed to its earthquake-resistant design; it has held up to earthquakes before and since the bombing.

Post-Atomic Bombing

Preservation

Due to its stone and steel structure, the building was one of the few structures left standing near the bomb's

hypocenter In seismology, a hypocenter or hypocentre () is the point of origin of an earthquake or a subsurface nuclear explosion. A synonym is the focus of an earthquake. Earthquakes An earthquake's hypocenter is the position where the strain ener ...

. Soon commonly called the Genbaku ("A-Bomb") Dome, due to the exposed metal dome framework at its apex, the structure was scheduled to be demolished with the rest of the ruins, but the majority of the building was intact, delaying the demolition plans. The Dome became a subject of controversy, with some locals wanting it torn down, while others wanted to preserve it as a memorial of the bombing and a symbol of peace. Ultimately, when the reconstruction of Hiroshima began, the skeletal remains of the building were preserved. From 1950 through 1964, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park was established around the Dome. The Hiroshima City Council adopted a resolution in 1966 on the permanent preservation of the Genbaku Dome, officially named the Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome). The Dome continues to be the park's primary landmark. Hiroshima Dome 1945

Weathering and deterioration of the Genbaku Dome continued in the post-war period. The Hiroshima City Council declared in 1966 that it intended to indefinitely preserve the structure, now termed "Genbaku Dome". The first popularly elected mayor of Hiroshima, Shinzo Hamai (1905–1968) sought funds for the preservation effort domestically and internationally. During one trip to Tokyo, Hamai resorted to collecting funds directly on the streets of the capital. Preservation work on the Genbaku Dome was completed in 1967. The Genbaku Dome has undergone two minor preservation projects to stabilize the ruin, notably between October 1989 and March 1990. The Genbaku Dome stands almost exactly as it did after the bombing on 6 August 1945. Changes to the ruins, meant to ensure the stability of the structure, have been minimal.

UNESCO World Heritage Site

In December 1996, the Genbaku Dome was registered on the UNESCO World Heritage List based on the Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. Its inclusion into the UNESCO list was based on its survival from a destructive force (atomic bomb), the first use of nuclear weapons on a human population, and its representation as a symbol of peace. Delegates to the World Heritage Committee from China and the United States had reservations regarding the confirmation of the memorial as a World Heritage Site. China cited the possibility that the monument could be used to downplay the fact that the victim countries of Japan's aggression suffered the greatest losses of life during the war, and the United States stated that having a memorial to a war site would omit the necessary historical context. The United States dissociated itself from the decision.WH Committee: Report of the 20th Session, Merida 1996
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Gallery

File:Hiromuseum.jpg, Products Exhibition Hall in its original condition (c. 1921–1933) File:Genbaku Dome 2.jpg, Hall, taken from Motoyasu Bridge (c. 1921–1933) File:HiroshimaAtomicBombDome1921.jpg, Nighttime photograph, 1921 File:A-Bomb Dome close-up.jpg, Citizens of the city pass by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial on their way to a memorial ceremony on 6 August 2004 File:Gambaku Dome of Hiroshima.jpg, The Dome, photo taken from the southwest side File:Ganbaku Dome of Hiroshima from distance.jpg, Distant view of the Dome; shot is taken from the Aioi Bridge File:GenbakuDome02.jpg, Side view of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial File:A-bomb dome closeup.jpg, Close up of the dome File:HiroshimaGembakuDome6747.jpg, Dome with plaque File:Old and New.jpg, Peace Dome, then and now File:A-bomb dome.jpg, Genbaku Dome in 2007 File:A-bomb dome at night.jpg, Genbaku Dome at night File:A-Bomb Dome at Night.JPG, Genbaku Dome at night File:Paper cranes.jpg, Origami cranes File:Hiroshima dome.JPG, Hiroshima dome as seen from the memorial park File:Atomic Bomb Dome Hiroshima 2015.jpg, Genbaku Dome in October 2015 (HDR Image) File:Hiroshima Peace Memorial9.jpg, Overcast in the spring (May 2017) File:Origami cranes at Hiroshima Peace Memorial.jpg, Origami cranes at Hiroshima Peace Memorial File:Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome).jpg, Genbaku Dome in moonlight (November 2018) File:Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima.jpg, Atomic Bomb Dome pictured in 2020, 75 years after the bombing File:Hiroshima A-bomb dome.jpg, Genbaku Dome seen from Orizuru Tower in 2019

References

External links

Official page

Entry on

(United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) website
U.S. Attending 2010 Hiroshima Memorial
nbsp; – video report by ''

Democracy Now! ''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long American TV, radio, and Internet news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live each weekday at ...

'' {{Authority control Cultural infrastructure completed in 1915 War monuments and memorials Domes Monuments and memorials in Japan Monuments and memorials concerning the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Peace monuments and memorials Tourist attractions in Hiroshima World Heritage Sites in Japan Buildings and structures in Hiroshima Buildings and structures in Japan destroyed during World War II Historic Sites of Japan World War II memorials in Japan Ruins in Japan