1 Meiji-jingu
Paean to the new capital
or two and a half centuries from 1603, the city then known as Edo was the power base of the ruling Tokugawa shogun (military dictator) who effectively ruled Japan. But it was with the so-called Meiji Restoration of 1868 – and the resumption of direct imperial rule – that the seeds of modern Tokyo were sown. The Shinto Meiji-jingu (Meiji Shrine), completed in 1920, was built with Japanese cypress and copper in traditional style to honour the Meiji emperor who was the figurehead of that watershed
