Qualla: Meiji-mura: The Village That Rescued an Era

Meiji-mura: The Village That Rescued an Era: Introduction

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 先従隗始, CC0. The idea struck on a commuter train. Architect Yoshiro Taniguchi was riding the Yamanote Line in Tokyo when he saw the Rokumeikan being torn down. The Rokumeikan -- the "Deer Cry Pavilion" -- had been one of the defining symbols of Meiji-era Japan, a Western-style social hall where the newly modernizing nation hosted foreign dignitaries in the 1880s. Watching it disappear into rubble, Taniguchi turned to his college classmate Motoo Tsuchikawa, then vice president of the Nagoya Railroad company, and the two men hatched a plan that would take the rest of their lives to realize. They would save Meiji-era buildings from the wrecking ball -- buy them, disassemble them, ship them, and rebuild them in a single place where they could survive. On July 16, 1962, they formed a foundation. On March 18, 1965, Meiji-mura opened on the rolling hills above Lake Iruka in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, with fifteen rescued buildings. Today there are sixty-seven.

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Image: 先従隗始 | CC0

Meiji-mura: The Village That Rescued an Era: Wright's Lobby Finds a Second Home

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit KKPCW, CC BY-SA 4.0. The crown jewel of Meiji-mura is not Japanese at all. Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel opened in central Tokyo in 1923, just in time to survive the Great Kanto Earthquake that devastated the city that same year -- a fact that cemented its legend as an architectural marvel. But...

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Image: KKPCW | CC BY-SA 4.0

Meiji-mura: The Village That Rescued an Era: Sixty-Seven Buildings, Three Continents

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bariston, CC BY-SA 4.0. Meiji-mura's collection spans far beyond Tokyo landmarks. The sixty-seven structures represent Japan's transformation from feudal isolation to industrial modernity during the Meiji (1868-1912), Taisho (1912-1926), and early Showa (1926-1945) periods. Eleven are designated Importa...

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Image: Bariston | CC BY-SA 4.0

Meiji-mura: The Village That Rescued an Era: Steam and Steel on the Hillside

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kone, CC BY-SA 3.0. Two steam locomotives haul visitors along tracks winding through the museum grounds, pulling three Meiji-built carriages. Locomotive No. 12 is a JGR Class 160 imported from England in 1874, making it one of the oldest operational steam engines in Japan. Locomotive No. 9 arrived f...

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Image: Kone | CC BY-SA 3.0

Meiji-mura: The Village That Rescued an Era: Preservation Against the Current

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tomio344456, CC BY-SA 4.0. Meiji-mura's founders understood that Japan's impulse toward modernization -- the very impulse that created the buildings they were saving -- would also destroy them. Many structures in the collection were rescued from demolition during the post-World War II building boom, when J...

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Image: Tomio344456 | CC BY-SA 4.0