Fukkõ Teito Shinfoni focuses on the rebuilding of Tokyo after the 1 September 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, which devastated Tokyo, causing an enormous fire that burned 36 square kilometers to the ground and killed 68,000 people. Following the disaster, the master commission for rebuilding the city seized the opportunity to make extensive changes in regulations affecting the cityscape, most importantly replacing traditional modes of wood construction and introducing new architectural styles and materials, such as reinforced concrete and steel. Tokyo was rebuilt, re-emerging as a modern metropolis. In October and November 1929, the Tokyo shisei chosa kai (Tokyo Institute for Municipal Research), which was established in 1922 by mayor Shinpei Goto, organized an exhibition, Teito Fukko (or Rebirth of the Imperial Capital), to show the progress achieved thus far.
For this exhibition the Institute also produced the film Fukkõ Teito Shinfoni, which was screened at the city hall in Hibiya. The film follows the city symphony dawn-to-dusk structure, portraying a day in the life of the rebuilt Japanese metropolis. We see the city’s bridges over the Sumida River, modern means of transportation, streets, markets, factories, houses, offices, government buildings, work, leisure, and neon lights at night, as well as other characteristic city symphony motifs. In addition, reconstruction activities are underlined. The film also includes a return trip from Tokyo to Yokohama, showing different urban zones and the city’s spatial expansion.
In its structure and content of modern urban life, Fukkõ Teito Shinfoni relates to other city symphonies of the era. Its filmmakers were most probably familiar with Walter Ruttmann’s Berlin, as it was widely screened in Japan in 1928, where it was proclaimed a great work of art, even though it was met with some ambivalence.
Eva Hielscher
further reading
Dähne, Chris, “Cinematic Urbanism and Architecture of Tokyo in Times of Epochal Upheaval,” Eselsohren 2, 1+2 (2014): 199–224.
Dähne, Chris, Die Stadtsinfonien der 1920er Jahre: Architektur zwischen Film, Fotografie und Literatur (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2013).
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