Day 4 - Imai-Cho Historic Area

It is surprising the number of similarities between the processes and protocols for historic places in Japan and New Zealand. Today we had a lecture about the documentation and community consultation process associated with registering an historic area, with a site visit to Imai-Cho, in Kashihara City, which is in the Nara Prefecture, but approximately 40 minutes bus ride from the main city.


Yesterday I learnt about the tradition of architectural model-making in Japan, and how a model of a builidng can potentially be registered as a historic cultural property - they were often made in preference to drawn plans for the construction of buildings, and sometimes lasted longer too. The tradition certainly isn't dead and many of the visitor centres here include scale models of the sites you are about to visit.


Imai-Cho was originally established as a temple town in by the 1500s (the Tenmon Period) a substantial jinai-cho (a town within the precincts of a temple) existed. During the Edo Period (1603-1868) Imai-Cho developed into a prosperous merchant town, and many of the registered buildings in this area are former merchant houses.