The is a museum in Ueno, Taito, Tokyo,

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. Located on the shores of

Shinobazu Pond The is a pond within Ueno Park (a spacious public park located in the Ueno, Tokyo, Ueno section of Taitō, Tokyo, Japan), and a historically prominent Shitamachi feature often appearing in history and works of art. The park occupies the site of t ...

within

Ueno Park is a spacious public park in the Ueno, Tokyo, Ueno district of Taitō, Tokyo, Japan. The park was established in 1873 on lands formerly belonging to the Buddhist temples in Japan, temple of Kan'ei-ji. Amongst the country's first public parks, i ...

, it is dedicated to the traditional culture of Tokyo's

Shitamachi and are traditional names for two areas of Tokyo, Japan. Yamanote refers to the affluent, upper-class areas of Tokyo west of the Imperial Palace.Iwanami Japanese dictionary, 6th Edition (2008), DVD version While citizens once considered it as ...

. The museum opened in 1980, six years before the Fukagawa Edo Museum and thirteen years before the

Edo-Tokyo Museum The is a historical museum located at 1-4-1 Yokoami, Sumida-Ku, Tokyo in the Ryogoku district. The museum opened in March 1993 to preserve Edo's cultural heritage, and features city models of Edo and Tokyo between 1590 (just prior to the ...

, all part of a national trend for building local history museums. All three were primarily designed by Total Media.Sand, Jordan, ''Tokyo Vernacular: Common Spaces, Local Histories, Found Objects'', University of California Press, 2013, , p. 120

Historical background

''Shitamachi'', literally 'Low City', is the unofficial name for the Tokyo flatlands, the area of Tokyo going from Taitō to Chiyoda and Chuō. It is the physically low part of the city just east of the

Sumida River The is a river that flows through central Tokyo, Japan. It branches from the Arakawa River at Iwabuchi (in Kita-ku) and flows into Tokyo Bay. Its tributaries include the Kanda and Shakujii rivers. It passes through the Kita, Adachi, Arak ...

.Edward Seidensticker: Low City, High City: Tokyo from Edo to the Earthquake: how the shogun's ancient capital became a great modern city, 1867-1923
/ref> It was inhabited by

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

's lower classes, including craftsmen, fishermen, sailors and merchants. The area produced most of what was original in Edo's culture and was the entertainment and shopping center of the capital. What remains of the old Shitamachi can nowadays be found in and around Tokyo's Taito, for example in

Asakusa is a district in Taitō, Tokyo, Japan. It is known for Sensō-ji, a Buddhist temple dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon. There are several other temples in Asakusa, as well as various festivals, such as . History The development of Asaku ...

. The Shitamachi Museum is dedicated to explaining this area and its distinctive culture through original artifacts.

Exhibits

First floor

To the right of the entrance is a life-size replica of a merchant's house, where

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(Japanese-style wooden clogs) are made and sold. In front of the shop are parked a rickshaw and a hand-pulled cart from old Edo. To the left stands the replica of a small tenement house shared by two families, each owning a shop. On one side there live a mother and her daughter, who sell cheap sweets in the small shop adjacent their living quarters. On the other, there lives a

coppersmith A coppersmith, also known as a brazier, is a person who makes artifacts from copper and brass. Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. The term "redsmith" is used for a tinsmith that uses tinsmithing tools and techniques to make copper items. Hi ...

who works and sells his wares here. The well and the washing board next to the house are original items used in Edo times in the Shitamachi. All objects exhibited were donated by the public and were in use during the Taishō period (1912–1926).

Second floor

The second floor consists of a more varied collection of exhibits. There are toys, dolls, photos, kitchen utensils, board games, card games, plus exhibits related to festivals and other events. There is even the entrance of a public bath (a

sentō is a type of Japanese communal bathhouse where customers pay for entrance. Traditionally these bathhouses have been quite utilitarian, with a tall barrier separating the sexes within one large room, a minimum of lined-up faucets on both sides ...

) donated by the original owner.

References

The rest of the article is based on the leaflet given to visitors at The Shitamachi Museum (English version).

Photo gallery

Image:Shitamachi museum-second floor.jpg, Shitamachi Museum, second floor Image:shitamachi-museum-1.jpg, Shitamachi Museum exhibits Image:shitamachi_museum-ueno_japan_toys.jpg, Traditional Japanese toys Image:shitamachi_museum-ueno_japan_toys2.jpg, Traditional Japanese toys Image:Shitamachi blacksmith.JPG, Blacksmith display

External links

Shitamachi Museum
{{Authority control History museums in Japan Museums in Tokyo Ueno Park Buildings and structures in Taitō 1980 establishments in Japan Museums established in 1980