Shoko Center (Hiroshima Western Reclaimed Land) about 60 years ago and today

History of Shoko Center (Hiroshima Western Reclaimed Land)

The Ota River splits into many channels at its mouth, and the town area of Hiroshima spreads over the low land made by those branches. Around where the delta ends at its western edge, the settlement of Kusatsu clung to a narrow strip of flat land between the foot of the hills and the sea. The bay in front was so shallow that the bottom appeared at low tide, and it was not suited to berthing large ships. Conversely, for filling it to make land, shallowness was convenient. These shallows were chosen as the place to move, all in one spot, factories and wholesale trade that had run short of sites in the town area on the delta. In the place name Shoko Center (the name means commerce and industry center), the origin of the land, made to gather commerce and industry, has become the name just as it is. This frame holds the whole reclaimed land, the quay that closes it off to the south, and the sea opening beyond it.

Shallows where the tide goes out

In the coarse-grained black-and-white of 1961-69, about 60% of the frame is taken up by water. On land, hills and a town area remain from the top edge down the left side, the coastline runs diagonally from the middle on the left toward the upper right, and right along it the railway and a road are bundled into a single band. Inside the band, at the upper right, there is a settlement with densely overlapping roofs, and the roads are narrow, threading between the roofs. The upper left is a hill with dark shadows along the valleys, where terraced fields and woods are mixed in patches. On the water, many strip-like white rows float with their directions aligned. The rows gather on the shallow side a little away from the shore and line up section by section with empty strips between them. They look like equipment for growing something in the bay. The composite joins several photographs of different brightness, and the seams cross the frame as stepped straight lines. Of the land that will become the town, there is not yet a single lot in this frame.

Land that is still bare earth

If you switch to 1974-78, two areas of yellowish-brown land appear in what was water. The one toward the right juts out to sea with its outline still keeping roundness and notches, and on its surface traces where water flowed and ruts from the works are scattered like branches. The other, toward the left, is finished with a straight seawall only along its southwestern edge, with a small jetty attached. Between the two a water surface like a channel remains, and the trace of the land creation advancing separately shows in the shapes. There are still few enough buildings to count, and the color of the ground is divided in patches into dry surfaces and surfaces holding water. The water on the sea side is murky and trails white streaks, telling that the works are under way. At the top edge, rows of houses begin to line up in terraces at the foot of the hills, and a trunk road and a grade-separated interchange have newly been added. In the lowland on the left, reddish-brown fields still remain. The stage at which the sea was replaced by earth is captured in this photograph. Note that in the composite of this era, the lower edge falls outside the range photographed at the time and drops into black.

From a checkerboard to blue roofs

In 1979-83, a grid of streets has been drawn on the reclaimed land, and box-shaped buildings with blue, red and white roofs are gathered block by block. Buildings and yellowish-brown open lots are mixed like a checkerboard, and you can read from the arrangement of colors which blocks filled up first. The southern edge has been finished as a straight quay, long, narrow warehouses form a row along the shore, and beyond them opens water for berthing ships. Toward the east, wide gray paving shows together with its lot lines, and you can see the size prepared as a place to put cargo. A green band with rows of trees and a plaza runs through the center, showing that the contents of the blocks are not only warehouses. The water at the bottom of the frame sinks dark because of differences in exposure, but the white rows still remain in the lower left corner. On the hills at the top edge, cut surfaces shine white, and a plateau with only the lines of lots drawn spreads out. In this era, the positions of the open lots are the markers of the era.

In the 1987-90 photograph, those open lots visibly decrease. Large warehouses with blue roofs fill the gaps, and the green of rows of trees continues along the streets. In one corner to the east, buildings and rows of parked cars have come into what was wide paving, and flat large roofs have formed a single group. Where the quay cuts inward in the east, floating landing piers are laid across, and small boats are moored together. Near the center a sports ground with a reddish-brown track and the green of woods are gathered, and you can read that a surface where people gather was provided within the place of work. At the left edge, the mouth of a river and its embankment come into the frame, and the western boundary of the reclaimed land becomes clear. Open lots remain in a few blocks in the center and on the left, and those are the places that were the last to fill.

In the town area on the delta, factories and warehouses were scattered among the houses. To resolve a state in which large vehicles entered narrow streets and cargo was loaded and unloaded on the street, the method of making a unified site offshore and moving there was adopted. The width of the streets and the large size of the blocks are conditions that could not be hoped for in the original town area. In the mid-1980s, Shin-Inokuchi Station on the Sanyo Line was placed in this area, and a station of the tram line linking the center of Hiroshima and Miyajima was also added at the edge of the reclaimed land. To land that had been brought here first as a place of work, the means for commuters arrived later. It is also from around this time that commercial buildings begin to mix into blocks that had been only warehouses and factories.

Inside and outside the quay

In today's photograph, open lots are hardly to be found. Large white and gray roofs fill the blocks, and the roofs painted blue have decreased in number, so that the change in the colors of the roofs can be seen as the difference between eras. The rows of trees along the streets have gained width and become a green grid, and in one corner to the east, very long roofs and rows of parked cars spread out. The inlet inside the quay is filled with floating landing piers, and moored small boats line up like the teeth of a comb. An expanse of sea lies outside the southern quay, with only ships floating here and there offshore. At the left edge a river and a bridge come in, and on the downstream side a long, narrow piece of land protected by an embankment continues. The foot of the hills at the top edge is covered with houses, and green remains only in the woods left on a small hill and on top of the hills.

The height figures show that this frame is almost a single plane. The highest measuring point is the center at 4.1 m and the lowest is the south at 2.5 m, so the spread of the five points is only 1.6 m. Unlike land where the natural levees of the delta and the low land behind them are mixed, there is no natural relief here. This is because the surface finished by filling the sea has become the terrain just as it is. The point that keeps value records as residential land is in Kusatsu-shinmachi 2-chome, northwest of the reclaimed land near the foot of the hills, about 930 m from the center of the frame. Per square meter, the 180,000 yen of 2017 became 275,000 yen in the official land prices (Chika Koji) of 2026, a rise of about 1.5 times from 2017 to the 2026 official land prices. The numbers also show that this is a low, flat surface. To learn how far storm surges and floods are assumed to reach, the quickest way is to consult the disaster maps published by the City of Hiroshima.