Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park (広島平和記念公園)

The park stands at the upstream tip of a delta, where the Honkawa splits from the Motoyasu. From the Edo period to the early Shōwa era, the Nakajima district was a central and lively part of Hiroshima; the atomic bomb of 6 August 1945 destroyed it in an instant. The reconstruction plan drawn up by the city in 1946 included a park here, and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial City Construction Law, promulgated on 6 August 1949, made the area a set of memorial facilities.

The open competition of 1949 drew 145 entries. First prize went to a group of four designers made up of Kenzō Tange, then an associate professor at the University of Tokyo, and three others. Work began in 1950; the cenotaph was raised in 1952, and the park and its facilities were completed in 1955.

Other elements followed. In 1957 the Japan Junior Chamber of Commerce and Industry gave the city the pond around the cenotaph: originally two metres wide on three sides, it was widened to 17 metres by 70 when the Flame of Peace was installed on 1 August 1964.

On 6 February 2007 the central zone, from Peace Boulevard to the Dome, was designated a national Place of Scenic Beauty: it expresses Tange's design thinking best, and the layout of the park survives well there. The designation was extended to the whole park on 28 March 2008. The Atomic Bomb Dome, at the end of the axis, was designated a Historic Site in 1995, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1996 and designated a Special Historic Site in 2025.

The park covers about 12.2 hectares. Peace Boulevard, a hundred metres wide and named in 1951 after a public call, runs along its south side. Tange's plan sets the park's axis on the perpendicular drawn from the Atomic Bomb Dome to this boulevard; the plaza, the cenotaph and its pond line up on it as far as the Dome. From the boulevard, the line of sight passes under the pilotis of the Peace Memorial Museum and through the arch of the cenotaph before reaching the Dome; it aims to express mourning for the dead and the wish for lasting world peace.

The cenotaph, whose official name is the Memorial Monument for Hiroshima, City of Peace, is a concrete structure designed by Tange and raised in 1952. It takes the form of a haniwa house, after those ancient clay figurines, so as to shelter the souls of those who rest here from rain and dew. At its centre a stone chamber holds the register of those killed by the bomb, and the front of the sarcophagus bears an inscription in Japanese, given in English as “Let all the souls here rest in peace; For we shall not repeat the evil”. The pond surrounds the monument so that it seems to float. The Flame of Peace rises on a base that Tange, then a professor at the University of Tokyo, also designed: wrists joined, palms open to the sky, 3 metres high, 13 wide and 8 deep.

Two bridges lead to the park from Peace Boulevard: Peace Bridge over the Motoyasu and West Peace Bridge over the Honkawa. The American sculptor Isamu Noguchi designed them, and they were completed in 1952. Tange praised the bridge: “This fine bridge sets off my design for Peace Memorial Park.”

The park also keeps witnesses of 1945: a former kimono shop, a reinforced-concrete building put up in 1929 and now the Rest House, and phoenix trees (aogiri) that went through the bombing, transplanted here in 1973.

The park is a place of remembrance, where many monuments and memorial stones have been set up for the victims. Every 6 August the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony is held here. The Flame of Peace has burned without interruption since it was lit, with the wish that it last until nuclear weapons are abolished.

The park also holds the Peace Memorial Museum, the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, the International Conference Center Hiroshima and the Rest House, which serves as a tourist information office and shop.

Admission to the park is free; it has no closing day and can be entered at any hour. The buildings inside, the museum and the National Memorial Hall included, each have their own visiting conditions.