Message from Hiroshima

                                                        photo courtesy of arch-hiroshima

"An Unrecognized Loss - Message from Hiroshima" showcases images of life in Hiroshima before it was bombed. The film is about the day-to-day life and culture of Hiroshima, a side of the tragedy that has never been addressed in such detail. It was created by the Hiroshima Reconstruction Project, which is committed to spreading the non-nuclear message through a powerful story-telling technique that uses the latest, digital image technology. Its theme is the enormity of loss caused by the Atomic Bomb.

The above is the description from the web site of UNODA, United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. The site generously offers you a chance to get to see Hiroshima before the destruction.
*The web site might not be reached directly, which happened to me more than once. In that case, please type  "An Unrecognized Loss - Message from Hiroshima in the "search" window on that page.

At 8:15 am on August 6, 1945, the first A-bomb ever used in human history exploded about 600 meters above the city. Below the mushroom cloud, people were in agony and their habitat ceased to exist.

Ground Zero has been transformed into Peace Park, where tourists, students, ordinary citizens and their pets walk. Monuments stand quietly and trees and plants please our eyes every season.

But we tend to forget that it used to be a lively neighborhood consisting of several towns, where people lived, did business, went to see the movies, and dined out. These towns should not slip our memory.

The picture posted this time is courtesy of arch-hiroshima, a web site for which I translate articles from Japanese to English. Webmaster Makoto is an interesting young man who was born and raised near the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, and now works in Tokyo.

The pilotis of the Peace Memorial Museum designed by TANGE Kenzo beautifully serves as a gateway to Peace Park. Through it, you see the Cenotaph for the A-bomb victims. The axis conceived of on the ground extending perpendicularly from Peace Boulevard toward the A-bomb Dome is unobstructed this way. Through the Cenotaph, you see the A-bomb Dome, former Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall.

The park, I believe, is a masterpiece done by TANGE, who spent happy high school days in Hiroshima away from home in Imabari, Ehime on the island of Shikoku. His passion and attachment to the city must have led him through the Peace Center project when he was in charge of it as an architect.

The area was a bustling neighborhood, which fatally metamorphorsed into a dismal graveyard before becoming the park. That should we remember.