Japan's Imperial Diet Building: debate over construction of a national identity - Japan 1868-1945: Art, Architecture, and National Identity

Early in the 1954 science fiction classic Godzilla, Japan's National Diet Building stands steadfast in the bright light of day. The edifice is a refuge for the terrified citizens of Odoshima arriving in Tokyo to testify at hearings on the giant monster that has besieged their island. Only a few scenes later, the situation changes dramatically. Godzilla attacks Tokyo at night. During his rampage through the city, he melts electrical towers and crushes the Waco Department Store and the Japan Theater. Godzilla looms threateningly over the Diet Building, then trudges through the structure, which crumbles in his wake. Despite desperate efforts to stop Godzilla, the government is powerless in the face of this awesome phenomenon. In the end, only the creativity and courage of a young scientist can stop the devastation.(1)

By 1954, eighteen years after its completion, the Diet Building had achieved the status of a familiar Tokyo landmark. In Godzilla it also serves as a symbol of the national community to the extent that it is the locus for the government response to crisis. This is an image consistent with the postwar constitution's designation of the Diet as the "highest organ of state power" and with the democratic ideology publicly espoused in the wake of the political reforms of the Allied occupation.(2) Yet the representation of the Diet is ambiguous here. Neither the Diet Building nor the government is capable of standing up to the rubber monster. The Diet Building may serve as a symbol of nationhood, but it is a flawed and uninspired one.(3)

From the time of the earliest stages of planning in the 1880s, people recognized the future Diet Building's potential to represent a vision of Japanese national identity both domestically and internationally. Yet no consensus was ever reached on how the Diet could most effectively fulfill that role. The protracted debates over the Diet's design testify to the complex cultural contradictions generated by the process of appropriation through which Western ideas were incorporated into Japan as part of the ambitious project of modernization.

In 1881 the Meiji emperor (r. 1867-1912) promised to provide a constitution and establish a parliament within ten years. After careful study of several European models, especially that of Germany, the constitution was promulgated by the emperor in 1889.(4) The new bicameral legislature, the Imperial Diet, met for the first time the following year. The Japanese leadership chose to form a parliament along Western lines to solidify a sense of national unity and defuse pressure from the emerging people's rights movement. At a time when there was also deep concern about the image of the Japanese government in the West, the formation of a parliament, it was thought, might help to convince Western powers that Japan was ready to deal with them on equal terms.(5)

The Meiji oligarchs did not, however, intend to surrender their power to this new institution. The constitution affirmed the emperor's sovereignty and included many safeguards to ensure that the oligarchs would retain actual control over the government through their dominance of the Privy Council. The Diet was formed as a consultative body. Over time, however, as the first generation of Meiji leaders began to pass from the scene and as political parties working within the Diet solidified their position, the Diet attained some measure of autonomy. This culminated in the formation of the first party cabinet in 1918. Despite the Diet's growing role, it was by no means the most respected institution in Japanese public life. The very process of party politics that brought the Diet newfound influence was widely perceived as corrupt and ineffectual. As a result, until the end of the war there was little enthusiasm for party politics, and the Diet as an institution was held in relatively low esteem.(6) The history of the Diet buildings reflects this tentative status. For the first forty-seven years of its existence, the Diet met in a series of temporary structures, as politicians and architects debated over the design of a more permanent building.

The Imperial Diet Building was only one part of a much broader program of government-sponsored public construction during the Meiji period. When the Meiji government came to power in 1868, it was deeply committed to transforming Japan into a modern nation. Architecture played an important role in that effort. The government needed modern office buildings to house a burgeoning bureaucracy and looked to the West for practical solutions. The Meiji leaders also embraced Western architectural styles, not to deny their Japanese cultural identity, but rather to assert that that identity now needed to be firmly rooted in modernity. Western styles projected a contemporary yet dignified image, and were a tangible expression of these aspirations.

The first plans for a building to house the new Diet began to take shape at a time of transition for the architectural profession in Japan. Japanese architects trained in the government's own architecture program within the newly established College of Engineering were beginning to take on significant public commissions, but government leaders still looked to Western advisors for certain critical commissions. As a result, the earliest designs for the Diet, a building intended to embody the spirit of national unity, were produced by foreign architects.