2024/05/15Comment by Norbert Tempel, Member of the ICOMOS Germany

In March 2024, after 10 years, I once again had the opportunity to visit a number of important World Heritage Sites of Japan's Meji Industrial Revolution: Iron and Steel, Shipbuilding and Coal Mining, together with Koko Kato and her team.

Meanwhile the Japanese Government has established a new partnership-based framework for the conservation and management of the property and its components, known as the General Principles and Strategic Framework for the Conservation and Management of the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution: Kyushu-Yamagachi and Related Areas. Japan’s Cabinet Secretariat has the overall responsibility for the implementation of the framework.

I was impressed by the positive development of the sites visited due to continuous conservation programmes, for which considerable financial resources are being spent. During a visit to the fragile mining island of Hashima and a subsequent workshop with the experts involved there, we were able to see for ourselves the extensive development and research work as well as the practical work already carried out to secure the sea wall, for which there is probably no precedent anywhere in the world.

As Head of Engineering and the Conservation Workshops of the Westphalian Museum of Industry (Germany) with eight former industrial sites I was able to acquire over 3 decades of practical experience in the conservation of large industrial monuments and was very impressed by the work carried out here.

The exploitation of the World Heritage sites and their integration into a larger industrial-cultural landscape by means of detailed maps (in Japanese and English), supplemented by images and films in an easily accessible app, can be emphasised as exemplary.

The IHIC's new exhibition in Tokyo shows the considerable amount of research that has been done on the individual sites and their complex history. It is to be hoped that many visitors will have the opportunity to find out more about the Meiji Industrial Revolution sites and the people who contributed to them with their work and commitment here and, if possible, at other highly frequented, easily accessible locations.