PAPERS OF THE RESEARCH MEETING ON THE CIVIL ENGINEERING HISTORY IN JAPAN

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This paper discusses the transition of the spatial structure of landscape in the Port of Yokohama upon the investigation of graphic materials and field survey.
The Port of Yokohama has experienced a series of stages in its development process. Before mid-seventeenth century. the major space was defined by the configuration of terrain and centripetal around the natural “Harbour- of Shukan” which was afterwards reclaimed for rice crop. At the outlet of this lagoon, there was a sandbar called “Elephant's Nose” running out from the sandbank of “Komagata (shape of horse headr)”. The major sights were distributed within this enclosed space. After the Meiji Revolution. Yokohama was designated to one of the open ports. and the foreign and japanese settlements were constructed on the sandbank. The shoreline facing Tokyo Bay was altered into a promenade called “the Bund of Yokohama” to form a centrifugal space. The port was modernized and enlarged through several steps of construction which caused the sense of visual enclosure. In front of the Bund.“Yamashita Park” was made by the Reconstruction Work after the Kanto Earthquake. After the World War II. the port was extended outward with offshore reclamation, and this enhanced the visual enclosure of distant view. The elevated railway and expressway visually divided the port area from the center of the city.
The major pattern of transition in the landscape structure in this port area are summerixed in terms of three aspects; extension and articulation of waterfront space: transposition of the distribution of viewpoints: conversion of major sight line. There may be some underlyin tendency in forming landscape; maintenance of the trace of past landscape: regression to or compensatory reproduction of the original landscape; transplantation of landscape from other place (Shanghai in this case).

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The paddy field reclamation work in the Edo period was usually made through the construction of irrigation system and the extensive implementation of cropping program. The project of Sarmtongi, being started in 1854, was initiated from theagricultural waterpaths operated under a relatively distinctive construction technology of the time. Furthermore, the new town and regional planning idea was peerlessly and successfully conducted. This historical performance is verified to be in close consistency with our contemporary theory for regional planning and is still the principle for the development of Towada City nowadays.

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