Aka Renga

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

Yokohama is a wonderful place to visit for a holiday with the family. It is a major port city today but until the mid-1800′s was a small fishing village. It is hard to believe that only a 150 years ago this bustling cosmopolitan city was just a sleepy town. When Yokohama opened to foreign trade in 1859, silk was a key commodity that was traded. Great Britain in particular was very interested in Japanese silk and as a result became a major trading partner.

It was through Yokohama that Western influences reached Japan at that time. And many of these influences meant radical changes. The Japanese were introduced to daily newspapers, gas-powered street lamps and railway technology. With these kinds of new ideas, Yokohama became quite a Western-oriented Japanese city. Many of these Western ideas are still visible in the historical architecture of Yokohama today.

The red brick building in the photo is the Aka Renga or the Red Brick Museum. This is now a shopping complex that also holds events and banquets but originally was built to service Japan’s export industry.

It is unusual to see red brick architecture in Japan. However two other notable structures built in red brick are Tokyo Station and the former Hokkaido government office building in Sapporo. The significance of this type of construction is evidence of European influences on Japan during the first few decades of opening to the West.