The Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum – A Charming Fraud

Have a look at the these pictures of Tokyo’s Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum in Marunouchi district – looks like a nice example of old British style architecture in Japan. And so well preserved!! Except that’s it’s all a fraud – the building is a replica and was only finished in 2009 and opened this year. It’s the first time I’ve had a chance to see it in Tokyo and was impressed to be quite honest.

There was a building just like it on the site built in 1894 and designed in Queen Anne style by the British architect Josiah Conder, the man designed Rokumeikan, the Japanese state guesthouse. But that building was torn down in 1968 though the original plans were used to rebuild as well as the use of red bricks and other similar materials. What no exists is a fraud, but a most charming fraud. The building hosts a collection of mostly European art including the Maurice Joyant collection, a group of over 200 works by Toulouse-Lautrec, not a personal favourite of mine but a great favourite of Tokyo cafe designers obsessed by all things Parisian still.

The street the building sits on, Babasaki-dori Avenue, had a number of other excellent European-style buildings previously and was, in the early 20th century, known as Itcho London (1 Mile London). Here’s an old picture of the street from (not to precise on the date sorry) sometime in the late Meiji.