Sites Related to Mitsubishi's History

This collection of important cultural materials was started around 1887 by Yanosuke Iwasaki, the second president of Mitsubishi. He wished to preserve these artifacts and prevent them from becoming scattered and lost during the Meiji period (1868–1912), a time when Japan was embracing westernization and neglecting far eastern culture. The collection was enlarged and strengthened by the founder’s son Koyata Iwasaki, Mitsubishi’s fourth president. The Seikado Bunko Library and Art Museum currently holds about 200,000 valuable old Chinese and Japanese books and documents, and as many as 6,500 antique works of art, including 7 works designated as national treasures and 84 works designated as important cultural properties.
 Since 1977, the Library has opened the works of art to the public in its exhibition center. In April 1992, in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Seikado collection, a new art museum was opened.
 Seikado Bunko Art Museum’s gallery will relocate to the first floor of Meijiseimeikan in October 2022, when the museum celebrates its 30th anniversary. The relocated gallery will be called Seikado@Marunouchi.

The inside of the facility can be viewed on Google Street View.

Toyo Bunko is located along Shinobazu-dori in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo. In 1917, Hisaya Iwasaki purchased the private library of George Ernest Morrison, an advisor to the Office of the Chinese Government. He built on this collection by adding classical Chinese and Japanese books collected from all over Asia. In 1924, he established the center as Japan’s first library devoted exclusively to Asian Studies. Toyo Bunko currently houses around one million books and materials in Japanese, Chinese, and various other Asian languages, including five works designated as national treasures and seven works designated as important cultural properties. Toyo Bunko is an important center for Asian studies in Japan and globally.
 A museum has been established to house these valuable books and promote Asian studies. Using the latest digital technologies and architecturally-designed spaces, it displays a long-hidden collection of rare books and pictures, with an emphasis on works designated as national treasures or important cultural properties. Visitors can also refresh themselves at the on-site restaurant Orient Café, which is operated and directly supplied by Koiwai Farm.

The inside of the facility can be viewed on Google Street View.

The Mitsubishi Archives were established in 1995 with funding provided by the Mitsubishi Kinyokai as an annex to the Mitsubishi Economic Research Institute (MERI) to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the founding of Mitsubishi. The Archives are located on the site of the former residence of Hikoyata Iwasaki (Yataro’s grandson), next to the former main residence of the Iwasaki Family (Kyu-Iwasaki-tei Gardens), an area long associated with Mitsubishi. The main missions of the Mitsubishi Archives are to safe keep Mitsubishi’s historical business documents and materials, to give the public access to these materials, and to conduct research on the history of Mitsubishi’s diverse business development since its establishment at the dawn of the Meiji era, along with that of Japanese industry.
 There is an exhibition hall where visitors can view a panel display of Mitsubishi’s history and its historical context from the company’s foundation to the present day, as well as a selection of Mitsubishi’s historical artifacts.
 The collection includes original writings of Yataro Iwasaki, contracts from Mitsubishi’s earliest days, public records, old photographs, and other items that tell the fascinating history of industrial development in Japan, and at Mitsubishi.

The inside of the facility can be viewed on Google Street View.

The Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum opened in Marunouchi, Tokyo, in 2010 as an art museum. It holds three special exhibitions a year featuring mainly modern art from the latter half of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century. The original red brick building was designed by Josiah Conder using the Queen Anne style of architecture from the Victorian era in England. It was erected in 1894 by Mitsubishi as the first Western-style office building in Tokyo’s Marunouchi district. The original structure was torn down in 1968, but it was reconstructed as faithfully as possible with reference to the original building plans and photographs. Collections center on Western art from the late 19th century, the same era as the original building. These include works by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Odilon Redon, and Félix Vallotton, among others.
 Inside the museum, there is the Café 1894; Store 1894, the museum store; the Mitsubishi Ichigokan Archive Room, where visitors can feel the history of Marunouchi; and the Mitsubishi Center Digital Gallery, where they can view the Mitsubishi Group’s archived cultural assets. The museum is truly a space in which visitors can imagine the era when Marunouchi was once a red brick city affectionately known as the “London Block.”

In 1835, Yataro Iwasaki was born here as the eldest son of Yajiro and Miwa Iwasaki. His brother Yanosuke and eldest son Hisaya were also born here.
 The site is enclosed by a hedge and contains the thatched cottage that was relocated here around 1795 by Yataro’s great grandfather and an earthen-walled storehouse built in the Meiji period. The ornamental tiles of the storehouse roof display the Iwasaki family crest, a three-tiered water chestnut design that is the origin of the three-diamond Mitsubishi symbol. The stones in the inner garden were arranged by Yataro himself during his youth to represent the Japanese archipelago. They are thought to represent the ambitious global dreams of the young man.

In 1896, Kyu-Iwasaki-tei Gardens was built by Hisaya Iawsaki, the eldest son of Yataro Iwasaki, as the main residence of the Iwasaki family.
 British architect Josiah Conder, whose work includes Rokumeikan, designed this mansion for Hisaya Iwasaki. Although there used to be more than 50 buildings on the site of about 50,000 m², only three of them remain today: the Western-style house, the billiard hall, and the Japanese-style house.
 This style is Jacobian, in the manner of the British Renaissance, and the interior is highly ornamental. The delicate design, which was rare in the western architecture of the time, will transport you back to the early days of modern Japan.

The inside of the facility can be viewed on Google Street View.

The Tosa Inari Shrine was established in the middle of the Edo period when Toyotaka Yamauchi, the leader of the Tosa Domain, built the western storehouse of the Tosa Domain’s Osaka headquarters as an Inari shrine. It became the property of Yataro Iwasaki in the Meiji period, and the family was so devoted to the shrine that it was said to house the guardian spirit of Mitsubishi. This is also the location where Tsukumo Shokai, the original Mitsubishi company, was established.

Koiwai Farm was named using the first kanji syllable in each of the family names of its co-founders: Gishin Ono (then vice president of Japan Railway—with “O” read as “Ko”), Yanosuke Iwasaki (then president of Mitsubishi), and Masaru Inoue (then Director General of the Railway Agency). Many decades were spent on the foundation as the ground was acidic and extremely sterile as of its opening in 1891. Today, the site is extremely fertile.
 The farm also runs participative programs to help promote interest and understanding of dairy farming and forestry through tours of its production sites and historic buildings designated as important cultural properties.

In 1878, Yataro Iwasaki purchased the estate grounds of a daimyo of the Edo era to provide his workers and noble guests with a place for recreation. The landscaping work continued after his death, and it was completed as a sublime garden with a central pond surrounded by well-maintained paths and trees where people could enjoy a stroll. Although it suffered great damage in the Great Kanto Earthquake, the garden helped save a number of lives as it was used as an evacuation point.
 Yataro’s heirs donated it to the City of Tokyo in the following year of 1924. It reopened as Kiyosumi Gardens in 1932.

A confidant of one of the early Tokugawa shoguns built this exquisite Japanese garden in what is now Tokyo. It was counted as one of the two greatest gardens of the Edo period. (The other is Koishikawa Korakuen.) The name “Rikugien” comes from the six themes for waka poetry described by Kino Tsurayuki, a famous Japanese poet in the Heian period.
 This delicate garden contains a man-made pond and hills raised at the corner of Musashino plain, which gives it a feeling of warmth. It took seven years for the garden to be completed. Yataro Iwasaki obtained the garden at the beginning of the Meiji era. His descendants donated it to the City of Tokyo in 1938. Currently, the garden is nationally designated as a Special Place of Scenic Beauty.

Sanyo-so is an elegant Japanese-style villa constructed for Hisaya Iwasaki in the middle of an expansive garden designed by Kyoto-based gardener Jihei Ogawa.
 The estate was converted to a hotel in 1947, and it still offers a great view of the 10,000 m² garden. Registered as a national tangible cultural property in June 2017.

Situated in one corner of an impressive 33,000 m² garden, this nationally registered cultural property is a former villa of the Iwasaki family estate and is surrounded by spectacular scenery. Now run as a Yoshiike Ryokan Hotel (established in 1941), it offers visitors a chance to ramble along the paths of the landscaped garden, which was completed in 1908, enjoy the cherry blossoms, azalea, and calla lilies in spring, hydrangeas in summer, and colored leaves in autumn.

A resort hotel is situated by Lake Ashi on the former site of Koyata Iwasaki’s villa. The hotel’s vast garden contains 100-year-old azaleas said to have been played by Koyata Iwasaki himself. In addition to the flowers, you can also enjoy the changing of the seasons by Lake Ashi, with Mt. Fuji standing majestically in the background.

This garden was originally founded as a villa for Sadae Eguchi, who later became president of South Manchuria Railways Co. The Iwasaki family purchased the villa from him in 1929 and commissioned Saku Tsuda to redesign an existing main building and to design an additional tea-ceremony house (Koyotei). This is how Tonogayato Gardens was completed.
 The garden also features a pond and roaming paths, taking advantage of the natural topography of Musashino. It is now owned by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and open to the general public.

The Historical Museum was opened in 1985 in a refurbished building on the premises of Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works. The building was originally built in 1898, during the formative years of the shipbuilding industry, as a wood pattern shop for producing the molds for metal castings in response to the increasing demand for cast-metal products. It was also the first workshop in Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works to run on electricity.
 Over 900 items are displayed in the museum, including a collection of the oldest machine tools in Japan and the first domestically-developed land steam turbine. In July 2015, the building was registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site due its significance during Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution.

Meijiseimeikan is a reinforced concrete building with a steel framework featuring eight floors above ground and an additional two floors underground. Designed by Prof. Shinichiro Okada of Tokyo Fine Arts School (Tokyo University of the Arts), an influential figure in architecture at the time, it was completed in 1934 after three years and seven months of construction and boasted many advanced facilities for its time. Meijiseimeikan is considered a masterpiece of classicism and one of the greatest modern Western-style buildings.
 Since the end of World War II, the building had been requisitioned by the GHQ and used as a venue for the Allied Council for Japan. It has a history of surviving the tumultuous Showa era. Seikado@Marunouchi, the gallery of the Seikado Bunko Art Museum, will open on the first floor of Meijiseimeikan. The relocated gallery will display the museum’s art collection.

The former Takeshiro Nagayama Residence was built by Takeshiro Nagayama as a private residence around 1880 during his tenure as director of the Tonden Army Headquarters. In 1911, the Mitsubishi Joint Stock Company acquired the site and built the Mitsubishi Mining Company Dormitory on it in 1937.
 The former Takeshiro Nagayama Residence and former Mitsubishi Mining Company Dormitory showcase the styles of the early Meiji and Showa periods, giving this fusion a high architectural value.
The Former Takeshiro Nagayama Residence became a Tangible Cultural Property of Hokkaido in 1987, after ownership of the building was transferred to Sapporo City in 1985. The Former Mitsubishi Mining Company Dormitory became a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2019.

The NYK Maritime Museum introduces more than 130 years of Nippon Yusen Kaisha’s history, from the company’s secret origin to its activities in the modern era. Museum exhibits feature extensive resources such as ship models, important documents, and beautifully printed pamphlets from passenger ships. The historic museum building was originally built as the Yokohama branch of NYK in 1936 and has distinctive Corinthian columns reaching up to the top of the second floor.

Hikawa Maru is a cargo-passenger ship that was built in 1930 to service the shipping route to Seattle. It was a state-of-the-art ship at that time, and is a reminder of the age of luxury passenger liners prior to World War II. During the war, Hikawa Maru served as a hospital ship, and was moored at a special pier in Yamashita Park in Yokohama in 1961. Open to the public, in 2016 it was designated as a nationally important cultural property.
 The ship is a beloved symbol of Yokohama, and is highly regarded as a precious part of Japan’s industrial heritage.

The Sado Gold Mine is a major gold and silver mine that was developed following the discovery of gold in 1601. After supporting the treasuries of the Edo and Meiji governments, it became a royal property in 1889 along with the Ikuno Silver Mine until it was sold to Mitsubishi Joint Stock Company in 1896. The Sado Gold Mine remained under the management of Mitsubishi Mining Co., Ltd. (now Mitsubishi Materials Corporation) until its closure in 1989. Total gold production was 78 tons and silver production was 2,330 tons respectively over 388 years. The mine is now open to the public for sightseeing, and Mitsubishi is working alongside the local government to have it appointed as a World Heritage Site.