recovery:Hiroshima

It is an obvious example of an established city violated and reduced to a mere pile of itself.


image courtesy http://www.internetbolaget.se/~stefan-a/hiroshima/atomeng1.htm

Though we are familiar with these statistics, I'll restate them. An estimated 100,000 people were killed instantly by the bomb; within a 2-mile radius people's bodies literally evaporated. Over the following months, 60,000 more people died by radiation or injuries (although neither of the numbers can really be verified due to the confusion at the time).

68 percent of the city's built environment was destroyed.


"Hiroshima" by Stephane Chabrieres. image courtesy perso.orange.fr.

When Mayor Nagin woke up the day after Katrina destroyed his city, did he stand outside and look around and ask himself, "Now what?" What did the rulers of Japan say after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?


a painting of destroyed Hiroshima by Christoph Draeger. image courtesy Roebling Art Gallery.

Hiroshima was rebuilt, and it was rebuilt well. Today it is home to 1.1 million people and is a prosperous, modern city. How did a city that was wiped off the face of the planet recover? The first step was promoting peace rather than revenge; in order to rebuild, the survivors of the bombing had to unify and focus. The government of Japan agreed to allocate funding to cities damaged from the war, but only if there were approved plans for reconstruction. (The majority of Japan did not know exactly the degree of the damage of the two bombs, because the United States controlled Japan at that point and confiscated film of the incident in hopes to eliminate the threat of rebellion).

Immediately, Hiroshima's planners and (re)developers wanted to reinvent the city - the decision was made immediately because they saw no future in rebuilding an obliterated past, but rather wanted to build around a peace memorial - a city anchored by its identity. This became the Peace Memorial Park near ground zero and designed by Kenzo Tange; its center was a memorial museum. This progress moved the government to give extra aid to Hiroshima and, according to today's mayor Akiba, this was the turning point in the reconstruction of Hiroshima.


Peace Memorial Park. image courtesy planetware.com.


part of the Peace Memorial Museum (called the Peace Dome); one of the few remaining signs of the devastation of nuclear warfare in Hiroshima. image courtesy www.jal.com.

The reconstruction of Hiroshima brought its population to a higher number by 1980 than it ever had been, and it is known as one of the most pleasant tourist attractions in Japan. The interesting aspects of the city's rebirth are probably possible because of the government's tight control over what happened in Japan; the city officials decided immediately that the attitude would be peace and chose a new identity for the city and rebuilt toward that identity.

In earlier posts there is discussion about New Orleans' struggle to assert a new identity; it is only a year and a half after the hurricane but the government doesn't have the same level of authority as the Japanese government. What is the identity of New Orleans? The Japanese government and planning officials identified Hiroshima as a modern city with a devastating event in its past; the architecture and development was meant to show it. What New Orleans must do is decide whether it is a new city or an old city, a city with a disaster in its past or a city with a drastic change. Granted, NOLA did not experience near the level of damage that Hiroshima or Nagasaki did, but until a psychologically determined goal for the entire city is defined, people will struggle to rebuild their own individual lives.

The Japanese thrive off of invention and reinvention; there are new solutions to restoring New Orleans and preserving its old charm. It is the art of subtle presentation.


sources:
The Bomb Project
Bill Powell: "How Hiroshima Rose from the Ashes." Time Magazine.
"Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." Wikipedia.