Pebbles of progress: streets and urban modernity in early Meiji Tokyo

Abstract

This article charts the improvement of street pavements in Meiji-period (1868–1912) Tokyo as a methodological case study for re-situating material objects at the center of historical narrative. So-called “broken stone” pavements – more colloquially known as “macadam” – surfaced the streets of modern capitals around the world by the latter half of the nineteenth century. As Japanese officials set about fashioning their own modern capital following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, they started at street level by repaving select passageways into properly macadamized boulevards. In doing so, they sought to produce streetscapes that would resemble other modern capitals both in appearance and commercial vitality, thereby mediating in the built forms of the capital the prestige and progress of the new capital Tokyo, the fledgling Meiji government, and the nascent Japanese nation beyond. Macadam, then, was a key material object of Japanese modernization in the Meiji period, and one that not only symbolized Japan’s importation of western technology but also embodied its attempts to catch up to the west in terms of wealth and “material civilization.” Study of macadam paving in Meiji Tokyo thus usefully reminds scholars to consider the materials that made larger historical processes work. That is, materials matter.