Visualizing the Birth of Modern Tokyo

See Tokyo’s modernization through the “100 views” tradition, from the gas-lit 1870s to the jazz era 1930s. Developed by MIT Visualizing Cultures, with images from the Smithsonian Institution.

Visualizing the Birth of Modern Tokyo

See Tokyo’s modernization through the “100 views” tradition, from the gas-lit 1870s to the jazz era 1930s. Developed by MIT Visualizing Cultures, with images from the Smithsonian Institution.

This online course shows the emergence of modern Tokyo through artist renderings of its neighborhoods, daily life and nightlife, nested between its recurring destruction by natural disasters and war. You will learn about the tradition of the “100 views,” and through these composite depictions of the city, witness the excitement and loss of change. Kiyochika Kobayashi’s woodblock prints of Tokyo in the late 1870s convey a moody view on the cusp of change as the new capital, formerly Edo, begins modernization with Western influences. Koizumi Kishio’s depictions of the “Imperial Capital” in the 1930s show the lively cosmopolitanism and move toward ultranationalism that placed the emperor at its center.

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Navigate visual primary sources and use them to investigate:

  • Tokyo, through the many locations depicted at different points in time (this can be especially helpful for those would like to visit these sites today);
  • the Meiji restoration and how Tokyo emerged from the earlier city of Edo to become Japan’s capital;
  • cultural and political interactions between east and west;
  • how Tokyo was rebuilt from various forms of destruction;
  • methods used by scholars and curators of the Visualizing Cultures project and the Smithsonian Institution to develop online content and exhibitions;
  • the ability of visual motifs to capture tangible and intangible qualities of time and place;
  • how to read image sets, especially useful in the large digital archives of today;
  • woodblock print series, distribution, and competition from other media.

The format of roundtable discussions between art historian, historians, and media specialists sets up a discursive and exploratory style of learning. You will be exposed to multiple points of view as the teaching team brings together scholars who have studied the topics from different disciplines. You will engage with visual evidence as primary sources to assemble arguments.

For teachers, the course presents a number of units from the online resource, MIT Visualizing Cultures (VC). The course instructors are the authors of VC units, and guide students through the site's rich content. The VC website, widely taught in both secondary and college courses, is the primary resource for this course. Educators can selectively pick modules that target needs in their classrooms; the course can be used in a “flipped” classroom where students are assigned modules as homework.

Other Visualizing Cultures courses you may be interested in: Visualizing Japan (1850s-1930s): Westernization, Protest, Modernity (VJx)

What you'll learn

This course invites learners into the process of exploring history through content that literally looks at change in Tokyo over time. Learners will acquire background and skills that will help with:

  • understanding how Japan and its capital city evolved
  • the study of history and how it uses visual sources
  • the study of visual images, large databases and visual communication
  • the culture of change in the built environment.

Prerequisites

None

Meet your instructors

  • Featured image for Ellen Sebring
    Creative Director of MIT Visualizing Cultures
  • Featured image for Shigeru Miyagawa
    Professor of Linguistics and Kochi-Majiro Professor of Japanese Language and Culture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Featured image for John W. Dower
    Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Featured image for James T. Ulak
    President at United States - Japan Foundation
  • Featured image for Hiromu Nagahara
    Associate Professor

Who can take this course?

Because of U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) restrictions and other U.S. federal regulations, learners residing in one or more of the following countries or regions will not be able to register for this course: Iran, Cuba, Syria, North Korea and the Crimea, Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic regions of Ukraine.