History of the Bikan Historical Area

The area around what is now the Bikan Historical Area first appears in historical records in the late 16th century.

From the Ice Age to the 15th century

It is said that the area around the Bikan Historical Area was dry land during the Ice Age. Sea levels are thought to have been about 100 meters lower than today, connecting the continent to the Japanese archipelago and leaving the area around the Seto Inland Sea as dry land. Naumann’s elephants are therefore thought to have lived here, and fossils of Naumann’s elephants have in fact been recovered from the seabed of the Seto Inland Sea.

Around this time, humans also seem to have migrated to the Japanese archipelago in search of warmer places. Since the area around the Bikan Historical Area is thought to have been dry land, people may have lived there as well. People at the time moved in search of warm places and food, and had little concept of “settlement,” so no traces of their lives have been found.

Around 6,000 years ago, during the Jomon period, the Ice Age ended and areas that had been dry land became sea. The same was true around the Bikan Historical Area, but areas now named after mountains, such as Tsurugatayama and Mukoyama, and areas named after islands, such as Hashima, were islands at the time and are thought to have been inhabited by Jomon people.

Evidence of this remains at Hashima Shell Mound and Funakura Shell Mound. The strata at Funakura Shell Mound are particularly deep, suggesting that a relatively large number of people lived there for a long time.

Later, from the Heian period through the Kamakura period, many manors—lands privately controlled by aristocrats, temples and shrines, and powerful figures—were established throughout Japan. The northern part of what is now central Kurashiki City was also organized into manors. Since Kyoto was the political center at the time, the surrounding area developed gradually as a place at a convenient distance from the capital. In present-day Nishi-Achi, Kurashiki City, stands Henjo-in Temple, said to have been founded during the Heian period, suggesting that the land area was gradually expanding.

The best-known event around Kurashiki in the late Heian period was the Battle of Fujito and the Battle of Mizushima during the Genpei War.

15th century

Even in the 15th century (the 1400s), the area around the Bikan Historical Area was still sea. However, sediment deposited by floods of the East Takahashi River—which no longer exists and flowed before the Takahashi River improvement works carried out from the Meiji through Taisho periods—gradually expanded the land across the area north of the Bikan Historical Area.

People seeking new places to live began settling on the newly formed land.
From a modern perspective, one might wonder, “Would people really want to live on new land by the sea?” Today, inland areas are more convenient and comfortable places to live, but until the Meiji period, the sea—not land—was the main route for transporting goods.

For this reason, people living in coastal towns and on islands prospered through trade. Water transport remained the main means of transportation until the Meiji period, when railways appeared, so it is important to look at the land from the sea, rather than at the sea from the land.

From this perspective, Kojima and Tsurajima in Kurashiki may have been prosperous areas.

Edo period (early)

Until the 16th century, Kurashiki was a port, so it seems there was very little farmland.

After the start of the Edo period, agriculture flourished, and land reclamation turned the sea into land in the area south of the Bikan Historical Area. Kurashiki then developed as a distribution hub for goods.

The place name “Kurashiki” was also recorded in local documents around this time.

After the Battle of Sekigahara, the decisive battle that divided the country, the Mori and Ukita clans, who had until then ruled most of Bitchu, including Kurashiki, were driven out of Bitchu. Tokugawa Ieyasu, who won the Battle of Sekigahara and established his hegemony, appointed “provincial magistrates” in 11 provinces, including Bitchu, mainly in the Kinai region.

The “provincial magistrate” was an official post established by Tokugawa Ieyasu during the Edo period to administer the Toyotomi family’s lands. Immediately after the Battle of Sekigahara, the Toyotomi family still existed and the Edo shogunate’s system had not yet been established, which seems to explain this arrangement.

Kobori Masatsugu was dispatched as Bitchu provincial magistrate. After Masatsugu’s sudden death in 1604, Kobori Masakazu inherited the family headship and defended Bitchu Matsuyama Castle. The key locations of the Bitchu provincial magistrate were Matsuyama, where the castle stood, and Kurashiki, a port with ships.

Kobori Masakazu is generally known as Kobori Enshu, and is also remembered in history as a garden designer responsible for Japanese gardens, including Katsura Imperial Villa, and as a tea master.

Thereafter, Ikeda Nagayuki and Nagatsune ruled the Matsuyama Domain in Bitchu Province. However, when Ikeda Nagatsune died in 1641 without an heir (the head of a family dies without a successor, and the family is abolished), Kurashiki Village became a shogunate domain.

Edo period (became shogunate territory)

From December 1641, Yonekura Heidayu and Ogawa Tozaemon were dispatched as magistrates, and Kurashiki Village became a town governed by magistrates directly appointed by the shogunate. This marked the beginning of Kurashiki as a so-called “shogunate domain town.”

Today, the term “shogunate domain” is often presented as something special. However, Kurashiki became a shogunate domain through circumstances such as these; it was not selected for the distinction. The term is also a colloquial name for lands directly controlled by the shogunate.

The shogunate likely wanted to increase the amount of land under its direct control. However, with daimyo in place, it could not act arbitrarily, so it seems to have expanded its directly controlled territories in this way whenever the opportunity arose.

For this reason, ordinary people at the time likely had no sense that they had been “chosen” or that “shogunate domains were special.” The idea of shogunate domains as something special emerged only after the Showa era, when the term became associated with tourism.

However, compared with “castle towns” ruled by daimyo, one can imagine that there was a freer atmosphere. There were no samurai, the ruling class, or “samurai residences” where they lived, and Kurashiki was not a town serving samurai.

Administration of Kurashiki Village

After becoming a shogunate domain, Kurashiki Village was administered by village officials.

The Kurashiki magistrate was a samurai, but in modern terms was like “a bureaucrat dispatched from Tokyo.” It seems the shogunate had no choice but to entrust local influential figures with part of the administration of its territory.

From the beginning of the Edo period, the village was administered by old-established families known as the “old elite.” In the early Edo period, these families owned many rental plots and houses and had become influential merchants engaged in wholesaling and brewing.

Hearing that merchants administered Kurashiki Village as village officials may bring to mind the Edo-period status system of “warriors, farmers, artisans, and merchants,” and raise questions. Although the idea of “warriors, farmers, artisans, and merchants” did exist, the reality was not so simple.

One current view understands society in terms of ruling statuses (samurai, the imperial family, court nobles, senior Buddhist clergy, and Shinto priests) and ruled statuses (farmers, artisans, and townspeople who owned houses). People were organized into groups and communities, such as the samurai’s lord-vassal system, farmers’ villages, townspeople’s towns, and artisans’ guilds. Individuals were assigned a status through their household or group.

For example, people living in a castle town were townspeople, while those living in a village were farmers. Among farmers, some worked in agriculture and others in commerce. Status and occupation need to be considered separately.

Kurashiki Village was a village.
Therefore, regardless of their actual livelihoods, its members had the status of farmers, making Kurashiki Village “a village of farmers, not a village of merchants or townspeople.”

Kurashiki Village extended from the area around present-day JR Kurashiki Station to Nitta in Kurashiki City (around Nitta Junior High School), while the area around today’s Bikan Historical Area was called “Kakoyashiki” (sailors’ residences). It seems that almost everyone in Kakoyashiki was engaged in commerce.

Life in the Edo Period

In Kurashiki Village during the Edo period, the Kurashiki magistrate’s residence (completed in 1746) stood within what is now Kurashiki Ivy Square, and many houses lined what is now the Bikan Historical Area.

In the early Edo period, the old elite were at the center of village administration, but new, rising merchants known as the “new elite” also emerged. With ordinary people, rather than rulers such as magistrates, at the center of village administration, the village also began undertaking its own initiatives.

Old elite	Ono family, Mizusawa family, Inoue family, Oka family, etc.
New elite	Ueda family, Ohashi family, Ohara family, Hara family, Koyama family, etc.

The emergence of the new elite later led to the “New Elite–Old Elite Dispute.”

Eventually, it escalated into a village dispute that also involved the farmers under their authority. It is said that for a long time, the two sides would not even speak to each other when they met.

In the Bunsei era (1818–1830), six members of the new elite challenged the old elite, who had monopolized village offices, and the dispute ultimately went to court in Edo. As a result, village officials were elected for the first time. Initially, the Ueda family from the new elite became village head, while the Mizusawa family from the old elite also became village head, and the village was reportedly split over which side to support.

This village dispute was apparently quite intense, and it can be said that Kurashiki Village saw many conflicts during the Edo period.

On the other hand, in a society ruled by samurai, the shogunate domain had few samurai, and farmers played a central role in the village and engaged in disputes. This also suggests that the village was economically prosperous.

The term “Shinroku” was used to refer to the group of six who sued the head of Kurashiki Village. However, the terms “old elite” and “new elite” were not used at the time and were likely coined later.

The mutual-aid organization known as Kurashiki Giso symbolizes the distinctive character of Kurashiki Village.

Kurashiki Giso was a welfare system for helping people in need, in today’s terms. The fact that such a system was established and operated by the community rather than the ruling class offers insight into the people of Kurashiki Village and their “feelings toward their town” at the time.

Occupational Structure in Edo-Period Kurashiki

According to the “Register of Small-Scale Businesses in Kurashiki Village,” in 1772, of the 1,838 small-scale household heads in Kurashiki Village, 893 worked in agriculture and 945 worked outside agriculture.

Among those working in agriculture, there were only 60 landowning farmers, while tenant farmers numbered 828, suggesting that land ownership was concentrated in the hands of a few. This meant that people were not equal simply because they belonged to the “farmer” social class.

The difference between owning land and not owning it was significant. Those without land had little choice but to run small businesses from rented homes or work as itinerant vendors. However, the opportunity to rise through one’s own efforts may have been a distinctive feature of Kurashiki. The presence of newly elevated families who rose through business can be seen as a symbol of this.

In fact, a wide variety of commerce and industry flourished outside agriculture.
Among these occupations, fish sellers (134 people) and cottonseed buyers and produce buyers (45 people) stood out, highlighting Kurashiki’s role as a hub for the distribution of fish and cottonseed. The presence of 10 wholesalers, 6 brokers, 10 innkeepers, and 19 pawnbrokers shows that Kurashiki was a regional center for distribution and finance. Sewing was also reportedly a common occupation among women.

Society in the Edo period was based on the kokudaka system, which expressed the productive capacity of rice fields, other farmland, and residential land in terms of the quantity of unhulled rice produced. Although agriculture was the dominant occupation of the time, the presence of people in a wide range of occupations in a rural village may have influenced later generations.

Meiji period

During the Edo period, Kurashiki flourished as a central town in the region, with the Kurashiki Magistrate’s Office established there, but it began to change with the Meiji Restoration.

After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Kurashiki Village became Kurashiki Prefecture, incorporating several areas into the shogunate-controlled territory previously administered by the Kurashiki Magistrate’s Office. Then, in 1871, Oda Prefecture (initially established as Fukatsu Prefecture) was formed by consolidating ten prefectures, including Kurashiki Prefecture, in Bitchu and Bingo Provinces.

The Oda Prefectural Office was located in what is now Kasaoka City.
As a result, Kurashiki, which had long been the “center of local government” since the Edo period, lost its status as a political center. Furthermore, after being merged into Okayama Prefecture in 1875, Kurashiki became “a rural village within Okayama Prefecture” and gradually declined.

Hitoshi Yamakawa, born in 1880, wrote, “When I was old enough to remember things, Kurashiki was still a village like an old pond with no water flowing through it.”

The Founding of Kurashiki Spinning

From around 1884 onward, young men in town began to take action, hoping to transform Kurashiki, which had become “a rural town in Okayama Prefecture.” Among them, Kimura Ritaro, Komatsubara Keitaro, and Ohashi Sawasaburo were known as the “Three Great Men of Kurashiki” and were involved in the later establishment of Kurashiki Spinning Mill.

Even in the Edo period, when moving or studying in a city was not as easy as it is today, wealthy people studied in Edo and Kyoto. The young men’s knowledge of the then-advanced “spinning industry” in the Meiji period is thought to have come from their studies in Tokyo. The fact that a certain number of people like them existed may also be evidence of Kurashiki’s prosperity during the Edo period.

They apparently had a strong sense that they were “going to the city to study on behalf of their town or village.” For this reason, sharing what they had learned with the local community and devoting themselves to the town came naturally to them, and they likely felt a strong sense of duty.

Since Kurashiki had been a cotton-growing area since the Edo period, and the Meiji government was promoting the modern spinning industry under its policy of encouraging industry, Kimura Ritaro, Komatsubara Keitaro, and Ohashi Sawasaburo went around persuading local influential figures to establish a spinning company.

With the support and investment of Ohara Koshiro, who became the company’s first president, many prefectural residents learned of the new business plan and responded enthusiastically, with numerous applications to subscribe for shares. Ohara Koshiro agreed to take up the shortfall, making the project viable. Thus, Kurashiki Spinning Mill was established in 1888 on the former site of the Kurashiki Magistrate’s Office.

Kurashiki Spinning Mill was a building that incorporated the latest technology from the West.

In the midst of a traditional townscape, and on the site of the former Kurashiki Magistrate’s Office, once the center of political power, the construction of a Western-style brick building may seem out of place by modern standards. However, at the time, Edo-period townscapes were commonplace. It is conceivable that people found greater joy in Westernization and modernization than in Edo-period townscapes and white walls.

Taisho era to early Showa period

After that, the central figure in the Kurashiki Bikan Historical Area changed to Ohara Magosaburo, who succeeded Ohara Koshiro as president of Kurashiki Spinning.

Ohara Magosaburo developed KURABO INDUSTRIES LTD. into one of Japan’s leading spinning companies, while also establishing the Daiichi Godo Bank (now Chugoku Bank) and Kurashiki Silk Textile Co., Ltd. (now Kuraray), among others. He also established facilities such as the Ohara Museum of Art, Kurabo Central Hospital (now Kurashiki Central Hospital), the Ohara Institute for Agricultural Research (now the Institute of Plant Science and Resources, Okayama University), the Ohara Institute for Social Research (now the Ohara Institute for Social Research, Hosei University), and the Kurashiki Institute of Science of Labour (now the Ohara Memorial Institute for Science of Labour), and supported numerous social initiatives and arts and cultural activities.

Around this time, Kurashiki began to take pride in being a “tenryo” (shogunate-controlled territory), and people came to identify with Kurashiki as “the town of tenryo.”

It was also around this time that Kurashiki began promoting its status as a tenryo, as in the phrase “Kurashiki, the town of tenryo,” which is often heard today as a tourism slogan.

The book Guide to Kurashiki City, published by the Kurashiki City Office in 1928 (Showa 3), contains the following passage:

“It has continued to develop in a distinctive way as ‘Tenryo Kurashiki.’”

More than 50 years had passed since the Meiji Restoration, and this may have been a time when the period under direct shogunate rule was beginning to be romanticized. The town of Kurashiki itself began to use the keyword “tenryo.”

Encounter with Mingei

Around this time, an important encounter took place that would later lead to townscape preservation efforts: the encounter between Ohara Magosaburo and mingei.

The word “mingei” is an abbreviation of “folk crafts” and was coined by Yanagi Muneyoshi. Yanagi believed that objects used in everyday life possess a beauty rooted in their purpose, which he called “beauty in use,” and launched the mingei movement together with Kawai Kanjiro, Hamada Shoji, Tomimoto Kenkichi, and others.

After meeting Yanagi Muneyoshi, Ohara Magosaburo supported the mingei movement, including providing full support for the establishment of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, and worked to share the appeal of local crafts with many people. As a result, key figures in the mingei movement began gathering frequently in Kurashiki.

From the Postwar Period to the Present

Ohara Magosaburo died in 1943, shortly before the end of the war, and the Ohara family’s businesses, including its cultural enterprises, were passed on to his eldest son, Soichiro.

Ohara Soichiro joined Kurashiki Rayon in 1932 and toured several European countries from 1936 to 1938. It is often said that he was impressed by the preservation of the townscape in Rothenburg, Germany, which he visited during this trip, and that he went on to preserve Kurashiki’s townscape. However, no clear record remains that he stopped in Rothenburg.

The only record is the account of Urabe Shizutaro, a former classmate from middle and high school and a maintenance engineer at Kurashiki Rayon, who said that after returning to Japan, Soichiro told him, “Let’s make Kurashiki the Rothenburg of Japan.”

There is no doubt that Ohara Soichiro was passionate about preserving townscapes, as well as about culture and the arts. However, he seems to have taken the position of supporting such activities rather than taking the lead himself.

One piece of evidence for this is his involvement with the folkcraft movement. Influenced in part by his father, Magosaburo, he had connections with people involved in the movement. In 1946, soon after the war, he invited folk textile artist Tonomura Kichinosuke to Kurashiki at the recommendation of Yanagi Muneyoshi. The aim was to ask Tonomura to teach weaving techniques to members of the Women’s Volunteer Corps who had been unable to return to Okinawa even after the war ended.

Later, in 1948, the Kurashiki Museum of Folkcraft was established as Japan’s second folkcraft museum. It made use of a rice storehouse belonging to the Ohara family and was the first example of the restoration of a traditional house in Kurashiki. In today’s terms, it could also be called a “renovation facility.” The spirit of “making use of what already exists” was one of the principles of folkcraft advocated by Yanagi Muneyoshi, and it seems that Ohara Soichiro and Tonomura Kichinosuke were both mindful of it.

The Establishment of the Kurashiki City Beautification Association and Townscape Preservation Activities

Then, in 1949, the Kurashiki City Beautification Association was established. It was the first townscape preservation organization in Japan formed by local residents, founded by local community leaders including Tonomura Kichinosuke. It is true that support for preserving townscapes was growing at the time, but this was not “the consensus of the residents.” Japan was beginning its period of rapid economic growth, when tearing down old things and building new ones was considered the norm.

Even so, the decision to “preserve” was likely made because key figures such as Tonomura Kichinosuke encouraged the effort. In this sense, Tonomura played a major role in Kurashiki’s townscape preservation activities. In the early years of the Kurashiki City Beautification Association, a piece titled “Traditional Houses as Cultural Properties,” published by Fujishima Gaijiro in the January 1952 issue of Cultural Properties Monthly, also reportedly provided strong encouragement.

The Kurashiki City Beautification Association always respected Ohara Magosaburo and his son Soichiro for laying the foundations for townscape preservation. In later years, however, it seems to have questioned the “story of townscape preservation centered on the Ohara family” that others had created. Ohara Soichiro was not unrelated to the townscape preservation activities, but there is no record of his deep involvement either. Since he often acted in ways that supported and aligned with the activities rather than opposing them, perhaps he gave them a kind of “seal of approval.”

In fact, many buildings in the Bikan Historical Area were later designed by Urabe Shizutaro, a maintenance engineer at Kuraray. At the time, however, people seem to have thought, “Mr. Ohara is doing something new.” As is still the case today, architects who designed new buildings did not attract much attention then, either. It is only in recent years that Urabe Shizutaro’s name has come to be highlighted as an architect.

As calls grew for rules to ensure the continued preservation of the historic townscape protected through resident-led efforts, Kurashiki City enacted the Kurashiki City Traditional Beauty Preservation Ordinance in 1968 (Showa 43), with the government supporting residents’ activities. It came into effect in 1969. This initiative was later adopted as a national system, and in 1978 the area was designated a National Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings.

In this way, the preservation of the townscape in the Bikan Historical Area gained a legal basis and has continued to the present day.

However, residents’ activities have continued even after the legal basis was established. This is because, although the area has become more strongly associated with tourism, the Bikan Historical Area is still a living town where residents, not just business owners, make their homes. The presence of residents also brings challenges in daily life.

For this reason, the ideals and activities of the Kurashiki Urban Beauty Association, established in 1949, have been carried on by the Association for Preserving and Nurturing Kurashiki’s Traditional Buildings Preservation District, which continues its work to foster a safe and secure town and streetscape and pass them on to the next generation.