(Top) View of the Edo-Tokyo Museum from outside (Bottom) The reproduction of Nihonbashi (©Edo-Tokyo Museum)

To step into the Edo-Tokyo Museum is to take a trip back in time. Nihonbashi, a famous bridge that was located in the center of old Edo, is reproduced in part, life-size, in the museum's Edo Zone. The re-created landscape of street theater, shops, and row houses offers a readily comprensible glimpse into the lives of both samurai and everyday people. Once past the Edo Zone, visitors cross into the Tokyo Zone, which shows how that same part of Tokyo looked after the modernization of the Meiji period. Particularly striking is a Western-style building in Ginza that served as the headquarters for a newspaper. This building and the other exhibits in the Tokyo Zone afford a ready glimpse at the process by which the capital city rebuilt itself by adopting elements of Western culture. index | previous | next