By: Alex
JR East Japan announced that the wooden station building of Harajuku Station on the JR Yamanote Line in Tokyo will be demolished after the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, citing that the existing structure does not meet current fire safety standards. After the demolition, the site will be rebuilt with a new station building, which is planned to retain as much of the original architectural style and appearance as possible in its exterior design.
▲(Photo by flutechill_benz @IG)
Harajuku Station was built in 1924 (Taisho 13) with a Western-style two-story design and small spires on the roof, and is considered the oldest surviving wooden station building in Tokyo. Since one of the Olympic venues, the National Stadium (formerly known as the National Yoyogi Stadium), is located near the station, the old station building was expected to struggle with the influx of visitors during the Olympics. As a result, its reconstruction was decided in 2016. The first phase of the reconstruction involved constructing a new station adjacent to the southwest of the current Harajuku Station site.
▲(Photo by Dick Thomas Johnson @Flickr)
According to statistics from 2014, Harajuku Station had an average daily ridership of about 70,000 people. Whenever there were concerts nearby, crowd control measures were often necessary inside the station. The new station is scheduled to open on March 21, 2020 (though its official completion date is August 31, 2021, one year after the Olympics), and will include a new west-side exit (facing Meiji Shrine) in addition to the existing east-side exits (leading toward Takeshita Street and Omotesando).
The Japanese public naturally felt saddened by the news of the nearly century-old station being demolished. Online comments reveal just how reluctant they were to see it go: “The station is right next to Meiji Shrine, and the old building as a historical landmark suited it perfectly,” “When history becomes a secondary consideration, the outcome is always disheartening,” and “Can’t they carefully dismantle it and relocate it somewhere else?”
▲(Photo by Jason Goh @Pixabay)
Source: SoraNews24