INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL ON MONUMENTS AND SITESJAPAN ICOMOS NATIONAL COMMITTEE
c/o Japan Cultural Heritage Consultancy
2-5-5-13F, Hitotsubashi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Japan 101-0003
Tel & Fax: +81-3-3261-5303
E-mail: jpicomos@japan-icomos.org

12 May 2016
An Urgent Appeal for Protection of the Cultural Properties damaged by theKumamoto Earthquakes
Yukio Nishimura
President, Japan ICOMOS National Committee
First of all, I would like to express my heartfelt sympathy to the people
affected by the series of still on-going earthquakes in Kumamoto
Prefecture and its neighboring region since 14 April 2016.
The series of earthquakes reportedly damaged 365 items of culturalproperties primarily in Kumamoto and Oita Prefectures as of 11 May;
among them, 134 items are nationally designated or registered culturalproperties, and 230 of those are designated as such by local governments.
In addition to that, a number of undesignated old shrines and temples, andtraditional residential buildings are known to have been totally orpartially destroyed. The total number of quake -affected buildings isexpected to rise as the whole picture of the disaster damage eventuallyreveals itself.
Japan ICOMOS National Committee dispatched to the ground aninvestigation team made up of 18 experts from 3 to 6 May, jointly with theArchitectural Institute of Japan and the World Monument s Fund.
As the team confirmed, the Kumamoto Castle suffers tremendous damage;
many sections of its stone bases crumbled and some construc tions such as

yagura watchtowers have collapsed. While it will take a long time to fully
restore them, it is desirable to make these cultural properties somehow
available for touristic use even during the rehabilitation, while ensuring
the security. In addition, to other heritage buildings such as the main gateof the Aso Shrine and the Eto Residence, both designated as Important

1

Cultural Property, the Janes Residence (former teacher s residence of theKumamoto Yogakko School) which is designated by the Kum amoto
Prefecture, and Suizenji Jojuen garden, a nationally -designated Place of
Scenic Beauty, more national assistance for recovery needs to be allocated,depending on the degree of damage, so that one can have outlook forrehabilitation.
While there is an established framework for total conservation and repair
for these cultural properties which are designated nationally or locally,that is not the case for those which are categorized as Registered CulturalProperties

andStructuresofLandscapeImportan ce,

letalone

undesignated constructions with historic importance. Yet, many of thebuildings which are suffering grave damage fall into these categories. For
Registered Cultural Properties and Structures of Landscape Importance,
there is normally no subsidy available for repair works, or when available,
it is with a ceiling. In such an emergency situation like this time, there isa serious risk that many of such historically important constructions go
vanished due to soon-to-start public dismantling operation of collapsed
houses, without some sort of rescue scheme to subsidize repair cost.
For instance, Shinmachi-Furumachi (literally “new town, old town ) area
in Kumamoto City is known to have kept a historic feel of a c astle town; an
old townscape of what was revived after a major destruction caused by acivil conflict in 1877 has partially survived. However, many of the historic
townhouses there got damaged and condemned as dangerous by emergency
safety checks, which forces their owners to consider disman tlement as anoption. The townhouses have been utilized as ateliers for traditional
products such as papered doors and traditional medicine, or cafes, and theyhouse many valuable materials such as movable cultural properties andhistoric documents. While busy applying emergency measures to prevent
their buildings from total collapse and to protect cultural properties theyown, the townhouse owners who hope to continue their family businesses
that they are proud of are in dire need of a prospect for repairi ng theirhouses. The Shinmachi-Furumachi area not only has kept historic stonebridges and river landscape, but also traditional culture since the Edo2

Period, kept alive by citizens, therefore it is an important place of tangible
and intangible memories stored in an urban landscape. In that sense,
Kumamoto is on the verge of extremely serious loss of its culture; it isfeared to be the case of “a castle remains, but its castle town does not.
Even in areas other than Shinmachi-Furumachi, a number of damaged
Registered Cultural Properties are found here are there. In case they arebadly damaged, their owners must bear a heavy burden. Some kind of
public financial assistance for repair at the time of major disaster isindispensable to save the Registered Cultural Properties.
Another example is the case of the smashed shrine pavilion of Haichiosha
Shrine in Miyayama District, Nishihara Village. The shrine pavilion,
which is an undesignated property, holds the local festival and is a core of
the community. The shrine parishioners, despite their own significant
suffering, are wishing to manage to revive the shrine. Parts of thepavilion s design date back to the Edo Period, but its preservation depends
whether or not public or private funding is available. Assistance fromearthquake rehabilitation funds and the like is needed.
What is urgently needed now is to assess promptly and precisely the detailsof the damage on cultural properties, to reinforce the assistance measuresby establishing supplementary budgets, to plan and execute repair works
andrehabilitation

of

local

culturalheritageregardlessof

itsdesignation/registration status.
Furthermore, the Japanese archipelago being in a seismically active period,
more natural disasters including new big earthqua kes and floods as theirconsequence, are expected. In such circumstances, it is strongly desired toestablish a system to save cultural properties in time of emergency.
Proposed measures include:
1. Creating cultural heritage rehabilitation funds comprising donations
from private funds.
2. Constructing an organic public-private cooperation system.
3. Promoting rehabilitation measures in the framework of historic3

community renovation policies.
4. Building nation-wide strategies for promoting registration of historicbuildings.
5. Promoting training of technical experts, and their certification, so thatthey can engage in cultural property registration and preservation as
part-time conservation architects.
It is believed that long-term rehabilitation assistance through suc hmeasures as above will contribute to regional revitalization throughcultural tourism.
In 2015, at the time of the third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk
Reduction, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction was adopted
and the Recommendation of the International Expert Meeting on C ulturalHeritage and Disaster Resilient Communities was issued. It is considered agood opportunity to put into practice the concept of Build Back Better(BBB), which is the pillar of the both documents. It is expect ed that publicand private sectors work hand-in-hand towards comprehensive protectionof cultural properties. Japan ICOMOS is determined to play an active rolein the preservation of cultural properties affected by the Kumamoto
Earthquakes.

Japan ICOMOS National Committee
c/o Japan Cultural Heritage Consultancy
Hitotsubashi 2-5-5-13F, Chiyoda-kuTokyo 101-0003, JAPAN
Tel&Fax: +81.3-3261-5303
E-mail:jpicomos@japan-icomos.org
Kazuyuki Yano
Secretary General of Japan ICOMOS4