HAT Kobe about 60 years ago and today

History of HAT Kobe

HAT Kobe is a location classified as reclaimed land, but even if you advance through the past aerial photographs in order from the oldest, no scene appears in which sea turns into land. The past photographs available at this location cover five eras from 1945-50 to 1984-86, and it is land in all five of those eras. The sea appears in the southern half of the frame, but the position of the waterline hardly moves as the eras advance. Here the photographs show not the progress of reclamation but that the contents of ground made early did not change over 40 years, and that after that they changed all at once.

Between the foot of the mountains and the sea

Because the Rokko Mountains press close to the sea, the flat land of Kobe is long and narrow from east to west. The elevation at this location is 6.4 m at the center, 22.9 m to the north, 3.8 m to the south, 15.6 m to the west and 10.3 m to the east. If you only go north, the land rises more than 20 m, and the south is close to sea level. The north-south cross-section graph is a downhill slope in one direction and the east-west cross-section dips in the middle because the location is placed at the foot of the slope falling from the mountains to the sea, at the mouth of a valley. Iwaya Station on the Hanshin Electric Railway Main Line is just to the north, and a park and an athletics stadium spread further inland beyond it. The sea side is an area where the shore was filled in early and turned into factories and piers, and the ground directly under the location is part of it.

A waterfront lined with large roofs

The 1945-50 photograph is coarse-grained monochrome; the mountainside of Rokko comes in only in the upper left corner, with the shadows of the valleys showing dark. The frame from the middle upward is a city area of a fine grid, through which the band of a trunk route runs diagonally from the lower left to the upper right. In the upper right there is a corner where many thin lines are bundled together, which reads as a railway marshalling yard. The lower right half is dark sea surface, and the coastline is drawn diagonally from the lower left to the upper right. Along the waterfront, long buildings with large roofs form a diagonal row, beyond which bright graded land and piers jut out into the sea, with water reaching in between the piers. In the lower left there are jetties and an anchorage enclosed by rounded seawalls, and long, narrow white shapes of ships float on the sea. The location already sits in a band of factories, and the sea lies just south of it.

In the 1961-69 photograph, the mesh of the city area becomes even finer. In the composite image of this era, the brightness differs from tile to tile, and the seams show as a grid. This is because photographs taken separately are stitched together, and it tells you that even under the same era label it is not a single shoot. The group of tracks of the marshalling yard in the upper right is clearer than in the previous era, and in the middle right about 8 to 10 white round storage tanks line up. Below the center, long buildings with straight roofs are packed densely, and south of them bright, flat graded land and seawalls edged only with straight lines appear. Rectangular piers stick out into the sea, and ships are moored on the dark water between them. The sea has been pushed further offshore than in the previous era, but all the land gained by pushing it out is land for factories and piers.

A waterline that does not move even with color

The 1974-78 photograph has color, and you can read how the ground surface is used. The deep green mountainside of Rokko lies in the upper left, and above the center an oval track appears. Two bands run diagonally through the center: a railway and a trunk road. The area in the middle is long, narrow buildings and material yards, with green and blue roofs mixed in. Piers lined with transit sheds with large reddish-brown and white roofs spread in the lower right, and in front of them a dark green canal-like stretch of water cuts in.

In the 1979-83 photograph, the skeleton hardly changes from the previous era. The roof colors are swapped for reddish brown, blue-green and light blue, the long, narrow buildings are lined up diagonally anew, and to the right of the center a large red roof and a dark quay appear. On the port side a thin line that looks like a bridge can also be seen. Even so, the shape of the waterline is the same as before, and the outlines of the lots have not moved either.

In the 1984-86 photograph, the track above the center is painted vermilion and given white spectator stands, showing it in a finished state. The factory band in the center is densely lined with large reddish-brown roofs, and south of it a dark water surface cuts in diagonally. A group of piers lined with white, cream and vermilion transit sheds spreads in the lower right, and in the city area in the left half the line of an elevated road runs diagonally. Even after advancing through 40 years of photographs up to here, the land at this location remains factories, warehouses and piers.

New lines drawn by the earthquake

The contents of the land were replaced between the last past era and the latest photograph. After the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of January 17, 1995, a reconstruction project began to place housing and public facilities together on waterfront land vacated by the relocation of factories. The name HAT Kobe is taken from the initials of Happy Active Town, and it refers to the area from Iwaya in Nada Ward to Wakinohama in Chuo Ward. Switching between the latest photograph and 1984-86, you can see that the cluster of large roofs from the center to the lower right has been replaced by rows of slab-shaped apartment buildings, facilities with large flat roofs, and plazas lined with trees. In 2002 the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art opened on the waterfront, and along the southern waterline a promenade and lawn plazas continue. In the sense that a former factory site turned into a town, it is a shift in the same direction as Kobe Harborland to the west.

Even so, the skeleton of the port remains. In the latest photograph, the outlines of the piers jutting into the sea and the shape of the dark water cutting into the boat basin are in almost the same positions as in the 1961-69 photograph. The waterline that did not move still runs in the same place today, even though all the buildings on top of it have been replaced. Piers and transit sheds remain to the east and south, with colored containers and large warehouses lined up. On the inland side to the north, the vermilion track and spectator stands appear as they are in the latest photograph too, confirming the continuity from 1984-86.

The residential point for official land prices (Chika Koji) is in Iwaya-nakamachi, 252 m to the north, and prices can be referred to from 1997. Per square meter, the starting year 1997 is 285,000 yen, the bottom years 2011 and 2012 are 174,000 yen, and the end point 2026 is 334,000 yen, and this end point is the highest value up to the 2026 publication. In the 2026 official land prices it is 1.9 times the bottom years, and a level nearly 20% higher than the starting year of 1997. It is a movement with large falls and large recoveries. The assumed extent that water reaches in storm surges and heavy rain is shown zone by zone on the city's map, and it needs to be checked separately from reading the aerial photographs.