Nagoya Castle

Alright kids, time for a little history lesson. This past weekend, I went to visit Nagoya Castle, one of the most important historical structures in Japan. It was pretty awesome so naturally I wanted to learn more about it.

The building of the castle was initiated by the first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate, Ieyasu Tokugawa, claimed by BBC to be “one of the most significant figures in Japanese history” and if BBC says it, it has to be true, right? Though this portrait of him makes him more like a delicately dressed poet, he had the good sense to build a gigantic castle to commemorate his victory at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 and to help protect his shogunate from some newly formed enemies. Construction began in 1610 and was completed in 1615.

Ieysu Tokugawa - picture from wikipedia.org

The castle “flourished” under Tokugawa Yoshinao, Tokugawa Ieyasu's ninth son, the leader of the Owari Tokugawa clan.  By the time Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the fifteenth and final Tokugawa shogun, came to power, the family had shifted residence to Edo Castle, in what is now Tokyo.  After the Meiji Restoration in 1868 - the period when the feudal shoguns were dismantled as Emperor Meiji centralized Japanese power to modernize Japan cultural, politically, and economically - the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Not likely to be forgotten however, Nagoya Castle became the first castle to become a national treasure in 1930. 

Painting of Nagoya Castle - 1930
picture from barewalls.com

Nagoya Castle - up close and personal!

 

  

During World War II, the main castle tower and the palace were destroyed by air raids. Because there were a large amount of photographs and written records of the building, the main castle tower was hastily rebuilt in 1959. Fifty years later, the reconstruction of Hommaru Palace began in 2009 as part of Nagoya city's 400th anniversary celebration. The entrance hall and the main hall were reopened in May of last year and the remaining constructions are to be completed by 2018. The poster below shows what the completed palace will look like.

NC 400 (Nagoya City - 400 years) poster
from hommaru-palace.city.nagoya.jp

Hommaru Palace Entrance Hall

The main hall of Hommaru Palace is decorated in gilded sliding doors with frolicking leopards and cheetahs and beautiful landscapes painted in the foreground that were very, very cool. Most of these removable panels were saved during the fire that burned down the castle and carefully restored to be placed in the reconstructed castle. A few of the pictures I took are shown below, though the Nagoya city webpage has a few better quality full prints.

                 

The prized possession of Hommaru castle however has to be the Kinshachi, imaginary animals, much like akin to magical killer dolphins, that were constructed to show off the wealth of the family. A pair of these animals sit on the top corners of the castle. On the north side is a male weighing 44.69 kg in 18 karat gold, on the south side is a female weighing 43.39 kg in 18 karat gold. There is also a less expensive mock-up on the first floor of the castle museum that is still very beautiful in it's own right. :)

Other highlights from the museum are shown below. 

    

A little palanquin for a little shogun!

A library fit for a shogun, though I wouldn't mind one myself!

And of course the view from the top of the castle was pretty neato.