After six years and six months after the Great Kanto Earthquake, Tokyo was rebuilt with a new road along with a new road in the Imperial Capital Reconstruction Project. Today, Eitai Bridge and Kiyosu Bridge are designated as National Important Cultural Properties. This time, I would like to pay attention to Enzo Ota, who devoted his heart to the design of the reconstruction bridge.
Enzo Ota was born in 1881 in Ito-cho, Tagata-gun, Shizuoka Prefecture (now Yukawa, Ito-shi). The younger brother, four years old, is a poet and playwright Mokutaro Kinoshita (Kinoshita, Mokutaro = Masao Ota). After graduating from Tokyo Imperial University, joined the Railway Work Bureau of the Ministry of Communications (later the Ministry of Railways). He is in charge of the Tanna Tunnel and Shimizu Tunnel, and is described as a genius engineer. In the Great Kanto Earthquake Reconstruction Project, he demonstrated his skills as Director Doki of the Imperial Capital Reconstruction Institute.
A monument honoring its achievements is located at Kanda Bridge Kitazume Nishi Park in Chiyoda-ku (upper left photo). The inscription states, "We have devoted ourselves to land readjustment and civil engineering, which were extremely difficult projects." He mourns his early death, saying, "In the spring of 1926 (1926), when mental and physical fatigue was determined, he died unfortunately as a sacrifice of his business." He died at the age of 45 without seeing the reconstruction ceremony in 1930 (1930). This monument was originally built on Nakajimakoen on the shore of Aioi Bridge, but was damaged by the war and was relocated to its current location after restoration. The background of the statue is the Kiyosu Bridge.
Eitai Bridge-derived boards (upper right in the photo) and Eitai Bridge (lower left in the photo) and Kiyosu Bridge (lower right in the photo) have all the names of Enzo Ota as designers.
Eitai Bridge is known for its Imperial Gate and Daiichi Bridge, but this area is poorly geology, and Japan's first masculine arch bridge built using the squeezing method. The lower part of Kiyosu Bridge is a hidden box method, which is a female self-ikari type suspension bridge. These two bridges are always contrasted with the landscape. Not only was it a bridge that combines the techniques of the time with the construction method and structure, but it is still fascinated by the design that created the aesthetics of the city.
Before the earthquake, there were about 600 bridges managed by Tokyo City, and about 460 bridges were constructed in reconstruction projects. Among them, the bridge over the Sumida River was a symbol of reconstruction. The "Sumida River Reconstruction 6 Ohashi" was called Eitai Bridge, Kiyosu Bridge, Komagata Bridge, Kuramae Bridge, Kototoi Bridge, and Aioi Bridge. The addition of the four bridges, Azuma-bashi Bridge, Umaya Bridge, Ryogoku Bridge, and Shin-ohashi Bridge, which survived the earthquake, is called "10 Ohashi". Each bridge of the Sumida River has a different design and is also called a "bridge exhibition".
His younger brother, Mokutaro Kinoshita, launched the Bread Association, interacted with people who decorated the literary and art world at the time, such as Kitahara Hakushu and Isamu Yoshii, and thought about the Seine River in France. The brothers may have been connected to each other through the Sumida River. ●Akira Makibuchi
