Walking the imperial axis: spatial governmentality and banal nationalism on Tokyo’s central pedestrian corridor

This article examines the approximately 3.5-kilometer pedestrian axis connecting Tokyo Station, the Imperial Palace, and Yasukuni Shrine as a material artifact of spatial governmentality. Drawing on Meiji – Shōwa-era urban planning documents, field observation, and GIS viewshed analysis, I trace how this corridor was sedimented through successive state interventions – the 1888 City Improvement Ordinance, the 1923 Imperial Capital Reconstruction Plan, and the integration of Mitsubishi capital with state spatial ambitions – into an axis-like infrastructural assemblage that channels pedestrian circulation toward spaces of imperial and national symbolism. The analysis then demonstrates how this historical infrastructure continues to operate as a mechanism of banal nationalism: without any single coordinating design, an Edo-period castle gate funnels crowds exiting the Nippon Budokan toward Kudanshita, where Yasukuni Shrine’s monumental torii enters the westward visual field, producing low-choice, routinely repeated encounters with commemorative landscape. By connecting Foucauldian governmentality with Billig’s banal nationalism through pedestrian infrastructure, the article shows how built environments structure visual encounters with nationalist symbolism beyond explicit political mobilization, with broader implications for ceremonial axes in East Asian capitals.