Hashima, an island in Nagasaki Prefecture in Japan, is commonly called Gunkanjima, which means “warship island” in Japanese, because viewed from a distance, it looks like a warship. It is a solitary island in the East China Sea, and is located 18 kilometers south-west of the Port of Nagasaki. From 1890 until 1974, high quality coal for use in steel works was extracted from underground coal beds here by one of Japan's major enterprises, the Mitsubishi Company, which played a leading role in the industrialisation of Japan during the first half of the 20th century. At a depth of 1,000 meters below the small island, there were vast coal beds extending for several square kilometers, which yielded more than 400,000 tons of coal per year in the heyday of the mine. The history and the physical conditions of this island seem to epitomise the Japanese Archipelago as a whole in many ways.

To begin with, the island was just a rock surrounded by the sea, but through the expansion of the underground mining area and the development of coal mining, the area of the island was increased repeatedly by reclamation of land from the sea. The dimensions of Gunkanjima are now 480meters in length, 160 meters in width, 48 meters in height, and 63,000 square meters in area.

With the enlargement of the island, the housing for its inhabitants was expanded enormously. Especially after 1916, multi-storied apartment houses of reinforced concrete -which was then at an experimental stage in its development- were constructed on Gunkanjima. The site is therefore of great importance in the history of Japanese modern architecture. Even in the midst of the Second World War, which is usually regarded as a vacuum in modern Japanese architectural history, construction was not interrupted. In its last years, the island bristled with over 40 buildings giving it, from a distance a distinctive silhouette from which it derived its nickname: “warship island”.

After 1965, influenced by the Japanese Government's energy resources policy which favored changing from coal to petroleum, the management began to reduce on Gunkanjima. At last in January 1974, the coal mine the island was closed, and since April of the same year Gunkanjima has been left uninhabited.

The inhabitants of this island constituted a self contained community -Gemeinschaft- under the general control of a single company. The island itself formed a complete urban enitity, where all kinds of buildings and services necessary for human life, literally from the cradle to the grave, were arranged in an extraordinary concentrated multi-level complex.

Our group of research workers have visited the island every year for 13 years since 1974, have surveyed historical buildings and the residential environment, and have recorded the process of deterioration and decay of both the buildings and the island as a whole. In the process, we have taken well over 20,000 photographs and made over 1,000 sheets of drawings and diagrams.

Fortunately, 2 years ago, we were able to publish “Gunkanjima Data Book -Survey and Studies on the Modern Buildings on Gunkanjima Island-” (Tokyo Denki University Press, 1984, 680p., 814ph., 776i11..)

The present volume [featured here on this site] is just a summary of the above-mentioned survey and studies. The purpose of our studies are summarised in the following 4 paragraphs: (1) Revising current ideas about the history of modern Japanese architecture by tracing the development of necessary constructional techniques and approaches to the planning and erection of buildings, as well as investigating the oldest reinforced concrete apartment house in Japan, and by highlighting the contributions of grass-roots pioneers who have passed unnoticed by historians up to now. (2) Providing basic material for a human approach to design problem in contemporary big cities, by analysing the character of a community in a high-density residential area, and its use of the buildings and the outdoor spaces on the island. (3) Attempting to understand the techniques and principles used in the 3 dimensional composition of buildings, bridges, artificial decks, pilotis and underpasses, complicated by the steep configuration of the site. (4) Contributing to an understanding of the problems of buildings and equipment, and the development of weather-proofing techniques, through observing and recording the process of deterioration and decay in buildings exposed to severe conditions, which were suddenly abandoned by their inhabitants.

(In this booklet,) The first point will be discussed in chapter 1, the second and third in chapter 2 and the fourth point in chapter 3.

Gunkanjima island raises many important questions, directly connected with the solution of problems in the enormous high-density cities of today, particularly with relation to methods of humanising standardised residential spaces lacking identity and amenities. There was never a master plan for the layout of buildings on this island, and it represents a model of anonymous residential space reflecting strongly the community sense of the inhabitants.

Nowadays, when the optimistic rationalism of modern civilised society is found to be inadequate, it is our fervent hope, that this study will provide readers in every field of the arts and sciences, with a wide variety of suggestions, questions and new viewpoints, as they read our interpretation of Gunkanjima Island as a miniature analogue of the Japanese archipelago.

October, 1986

Tokyo Denki University,

Yoshitaka Akui
Hidemi Shiga