The beauty of Lake Biwa Canal captured with VR

How to enjoy the contents at the local viewpoint

1. Keage Berth View Point

The blue section of the photo indicates the View Point

2. Display Content

Hold your smartphone or tablet in front of you and tap on the “Experience VR Content” button. The 360-degree VR Content will appear on screen.
Superimpose the scene displayed on the screen onto the actual scene in front of you.
If the angle is slightly off, you can drag the picture with your finger to adjust the angle.

If you tip your smartphone or tablet, the content will display the same direction.

You can move the angle with your finger.

3. Play Content, Return to Previous Screen

Tap the Play button in the center of the screen and the content’s video will play.
To return to the previous screen, tap the BACK button at the top left of the screen.

Changes in the scenery between the Taisho Period (1912-1926) and today

Former Gosho Water Pumping Facility

The Former Gosho Water Pumping Facility, which was completed in 1912, still retains its original appearance, but the boat-mooring space nearby has shrunk considerably as more intake facilities for drawing raw water for the water supply and other facilities were installed.

Learn more about the Former Gosho Water Pumping Facility

Overview

The Gosho Waterworks were developed to send water from the Lake Biwa Canal for firefighting use at the Kyoto Imperial Palace.
At normal times, water was sent at low pressure directly from the sluice gate in the basement of this pumping station directly to the Kyoto Imperial Palace via water pipes buried underneath the city. At times of emergency, the water would be pumped up to the Mt. Dainichi reservoir, about 30 meters above the city, and the elevation difference would be used to send water at high pressure.
This Former Gosho Water Pumping Facility housed the pump used that drew water from the Keage Berth up to the Mt. Dainichi reservoir.
Built in a neo-Renaissance design, it has Tuscan-style classical-order pillars on the side facing the Lake Biwa Canal, and a balcony above the porch on the eastern side.

History

Concerned about insufficient water supplies for the Kyoto Imperial Palace and poor water quality, the Imperial Household Ministry began deliberation of the construction of the Gosho Waterworks, which would send a large, stable supply of relatively sanitary water to the Palace. Starting in 1899, meticulous investigations were carried out, led by Sakuro Tanabe, the Chief Engineer on the canal construction works.
The design drawings were completed in May 1900. However, due to the need to prepare and pay for the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, several years passed without the budget being procured for construction of the waterworks.
After the end of the Russo-Japanese War and the official decision on the City of Kyoto’s three major projects, plans for the development of the waterworks emerged once more. The works budget was approved by the Imperial Diet in May 1910, and construction began later that year under the direct management of the Imperial Household Ministry.
Construction was virtually completed in 1912, around the same time as the completion of the No. 2 Canal and the Keage Water Treatment Plant. After installation of the pumps, the results of hydraulic tests and high-pressure jet spray tests were favorable, and the Gosho Waterworks, including this Pumping Facility, were completed on May 14, 1912.
There is a record of the facilities being used for fire fighting on just one occasion, when a fire broke out in the Kogosho, one of the Palace buildings, in 1954.
Subsequently, due to the deterioration of the water pipes, it was decided to pump the water required by the Kyoto Imperial Palace from underground water sources. In 1992, the water pipes were filled in with mortar and the sluice gates were removed. With this, the Gosho Water Pumping Facility ceased drawing water from the Lake Biwa Canal.

Designer: Tokuma Katayama

The facility was designed by Tokuma Katayama, who was then Chief Officer, and Naosaburo Yamamoto, Engineer, of the Imperial Household Ministry’s Construction Office. Katayama is well known for designing the Kyoto Imperial Museum (now the Kyoto National Museum), and the Togu Palace (now the Akasaka Palace State Guest House).
Katayama’s wife, Teru Tanabe, was the older sister of Sakuro Tanabe, who assisted his brother-in-law in the construction of the new Gosho Waterworks as an expert engaged by the Construction Office.

Gosho Waterworks (spray from fire hydrant)
*Tanabe Family archives

Gosho Waterworks route

Daijingu Bridge

This bridge crosses the shrine approach of Himukai-Daijingu Shrine. There is an inscription on the bannister of the current bridge that says “March 1923.” Himukai-Daijingu Shrine is an excellent spot for viewing the autumn leaves, one that is not known to many. It has also been described as “the Ise of Kyoto,” after the Ise-Jingu Grand Shrine in Mie Prefecture.
Along the Tokaido Trail that runs under the bridge, there were many inns, and Yumiya of the Awataguchi official inns is believed to have also been located there. Here, travelers about to walk the Tokaido Trail would don their traveling clothes and take their leave of those seeing them off. It was also an important transportation hub, attracting many people who made their living pushing goods carts over the mountain pass.

Honganji Waterworks Reservoir

The Honganji Waterworks Reservoir, which was completed in 1897, still looks the same as it did when it was first built.

The reservoir in 1909 (behind the building)

Honganji Temple Water Channel Fountain Test in 1897
* Held by the Shinshu Otani-ha Sect

Learn more about the Honganji Waterworks!

The Higashi-Honganji Fire Protection Waterworks (Honganji Waterworks) was a waterworks that sent water from the Lake Biwa Canal at Keage Berth to Higashi-Honganji Temple for fire-fighting purposes. Designed by Sakuro Tanabe and Tadazo Yamada (Takeuchi), construction was completed in 1897. A reservoir 18 meters long, 9 meters wide, and 3 meters deep was built on the former site of the canal office north of the Keage Berth, and a total of 4,665 meters of overseas-made 300-mm cast iron pipes were laid underground. Taking advantage of the 48-meter difference in elevation between the reservoir and Higashi-Honganji Temple, water could be sprayed upward using natural water pressure, making it possible to spray water to a height of about 9 meters higher than the roof of the temple’s main building. The system is not operational today.
This was the first attempt in Japan to use cast iron pipes for the full length of the watercourse, more than 4.6 km. It was also one of the largest private fire-fighting waterworks projects in Japan, and became the precursor of the Gosho Waterworks construction that would come later.

Honganji Temple Water Channel (piping map) * Held by the Shinshu Otani-ha Sect

Cenotaph memorializing workers who lost their lives in the construction of the canal

The cenotaph memorializing those workers who lost their lives in the construction of the Honganji Waterworks remains unchanged today beside the Honganji Waterworks Reservoir.

Learn more about the memorial cenotaph!

This memorial cenotaph, located near the top of the Keage Incline Plaza, was erected in 1902 by Sakuro Tanabe, using his own personal funds, to console the spirits of those who lost their lives in the construction of the waterworks, and to convey their achievements to later generations.
On the front, it bears the inscription, Isshin Koto ni Junji Banko On ni Uruou (It is thanks to your work, at the expense of your own lives, that many people will enjoy the benefits of this construction), and the names of the 17 people who died during construction are engraved on the back.
The cenotaph was donated to the City of Kyoto in December 1919, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the city’s incorporation and the opening of the No. 1 Canal.

Canal Tidbit: Sakuro Tanabe Plaque

One of the most famous plaques connected to the Lake Biwa Canal is the one at the tunnel opening of the No. 1 Canal, which bears the writing of elder statesmen of the Meiji Period, including Hirobumi Ito. However, did you know that there is a plaque left by Sakuro Tanabe in Keage?
In the northern opening of the merge tunnel on the mountain side, just past the incline’s rails from the Keage Birth, there is a plaque bearing an inscription by Sakuro Tanabe, which says Suiri wo Karite Jinko wo Tasuku (Take advantage of water for the benefit of the people).
This phrase is taken from an Imperial speech by the Emperor Meiji at the completion ceremony of the No. 1 Canal. “I hereby declare the construction of the canal complete. We are delighted that the government and the private sector have cooperated in this venture. Technology and the industrial arts have always flourished in Japan, and our civil engineering prowess stands above them all. With the completion of this canal, we will take advantage of water for the great benefit of the people. It is our hope that all will devote their even greater efforts to the further development of our nation.”
At the completion of the canal, how did hearing those words make Sakuro Tanabe feel, and what about those words inspired him to leave them as an inscription on a plaque? On this spot, you can use your imagination to sense the history and romance of those times.

Tanabe Plaque at the northern opening of the merge tunnel.