Activities and Roles Played by Architects in the Reconstruction of Hiroshima after its Atomic Bombing

As seen historically, a War or a Natural Disaster brought devastating destruction to the place where the misfortune took place. The Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and The Great East Japan Earthquake, The Chins Tangshan Earthquake and The Great Wenchuan Earthquake are the cases. The function of the Relief to the cities suffered the disasters and the function of the architects' activities in construction rebuilding should never be overlooked. Hiroshima is about to begin its 70th year after the atomic bombing. The history of the restoration of Hiroshima will be close referenced to the reconstruction of the areas suffering from natural disasters in the future. This paper taking the reconstruction of the Hiroshima as objects of this study, researching by documentary investigations and interviews and investigations on the spot, analyzing reconstruction of the seismic areas and the architects' activities as well as the function of these consequent effects. Through the research following findings were obtained. We can observe that most of the building activity that occurred in the burned ruins immediately after the bombing event was performed by local design offices. The vigorous activity of the local design offices deserves attention and should not be overlooked as a subject of research to better understand the reconstruction of the local city. Although many buildings in the reconstruction process were constructed by others, a major role was played by local design offices. On August 06, 1949, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial City Construction Law was promulgated and two major competitions—the Peace Memorial Cathedral competition and the Hiroshima Peace Center competition—were conducted. These competitions not only played a significant role in promoting the full-scale reconstruction of Hiroshima but also played a major role in the development of post-war apanese architecture. From the early mid-1950s, when the Hiroshima Peace Center and the Peace Memorial Cathedral began to be built, we can observe that a non-Hiroshima Japanese architect or the design office and leading general contractors began to seriously enter the architectural arena in Hiroshima.