The Meijijingu Gaien Stadium was constructed within the boundaries of the Meijijingu Gaien Park, following the orders of the Emperor Meiji, to commemorate the imperial honor of the Meiji Period in 1924. The main objective of this paper is to study the spatial placement of the Meijijingu Gaien Stadium in regard to important aspects of the construction process.
The research adopted the publications referred to the construction process of the Meijijingu Gaien Park. The assessed period is from 1887, with the establishment of the Aoyama military field, until 1939 when the 10th Meijijingu National Sports Festival was held at the Meijijingu Gaien Stadium. Considering the plan of the spatial placement and the spatial composition, this study concretely verifies the planning process of the Meijijingu Gaien project through: a) the actual land use by extracting and associating; b) the matters concerning the facility; c) the statements of the mayor of Tokyo, educators and constructors; and d) the figure of the project plan in publications.
The spatial placement of the Meijijingu Gaien Stadium was analyzed following 3 important aspects. First, this study confirmed the history, the social background and the geographical transition related to the Emperor Meiji in the context of the Meijijingu Gaien Park. As well, we positioned to the ideological background, the origin and the initiative of the construction of the stadium from the mayor of Tokyo SAKATANI YOSHIRO. Second, we seized the circumstances of the construction of the stadium through the statements from the educator KANO JIGORO and the constructors involved in the planning process of the Meijijingu Gaien project. Additionally, we inspected the spatial composition of the construction process of the Meijijingu Gaien Park and the spatial placement of the Meijijingu Gaien Stadium. Moreover, the spatial significance of the royal box seats in the Meijijingu Gaien Stadium was corroborated.
This study clarifies the initiative of the construction and the development of the plan for the Meijijingu Gaien project, based on the statements of the mayor of Tokyo, educators and constructors. Furthermore, it reveals the history of the establishment of the spatial placement of the Meijijingu Gaien Stadium.
