TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION OF FACTORIES OF SHIPBUILDING, RAILWAY BRIDGES AND STREET BRIDGES IN THE MEIJI AND THE TAISHO ERA OF JAPAN

Abstract

 This paper summarizes industrial and technological history, assuming that sophisticated designs of reconstruction bridges after the Great Kanto Earthquake (1924.9) were realized with fabrication technologies in ship building and railway bridge building innovated through the Meiji and the Taisho era of Japan (1867 to 1926). The paper also focuses on a street bridge project in the Meiji era where three fields of engineers (shipbuilding, railway bridge, street bridge) collaborated.