Naikoku Kangyo Hakurankai (The National Industrial Exhibition)

The National Industrial Exhibition was held by the Meiji government to develop Japan’s domestic industrial sector. Their aim was to build a strong nation equivalent to the great powers of the West. Toshimichi Ohkubo, the Secretary of Interior and a powerful figure in the government at the time, proposed the idea and in 1877, the first exhibition was held in Ueno, Tokyo.The exhibition had six sections: mining and metallurgy, manufactured goods, arts, machinery, agriculture, and gardening. It is said that over 450 thousand people from around the country visited the exhibition. Products were submitted and judged in each section. Tatsumune Gaun’s throttle spinning, the so-called Gara-bo, won the highest prize of the entire exhibition.An art museum was built for the exhibition on the site of Kaneiji Temple’s main temple, and it was the first building in Japanese history to be named ‘art museum’.The National Industrial Exhibition was held five times in total: the first, second, and third were held in Ueno, Tokyo; the fourth was in Kyoto; and the last was in Tennoji, Osaka in 1903. Although the hosts had a policy against entertainment at first, the final exhibition was very leisure-oriented and as a result, it drew an unprecedented number of visitors ? 4.35 million people. This exhibition had a Taiwan pavilion, and a Gakujutsu-Jinrui pavilion (Anthropology pavilion), which was sponsored by a private company. It was pointed out that the fifth exhibition changed the characteristics of the National Industrial Exhibition, including the introduction of exhibition design that reflected the colonialism, which had been shown at exhibitions in the West.