The purpose of this paper is to trace up the life history of Yoshitane Tochinai, and advocator of the movement for urban beauty. In the early 1920's, Tochinai, originally a journalist, argued that the citizen themselves should improve urban environment and started the society for the research of civic art in Tokyo. Then, he interpreted civic art to the citizens. Besides, he advocated historic preservation and tried to arouse public opinion for urban improvement in his birthplace Morioka thorough his articles. After 1930, he published a series of papers on urban landscape as identities of local cities and lectured for urban improvement in towns of the Iwate prefecture. In 1935, he founded the society of Japanese urban landscape in Tokyo.
