Nationwide design competition

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, located in Naka Ward, is comprised of the triangular area between the Honkawa River and the Motoyasu River down to Peace Boulevard, along with the area around the A-bomb Dome. The 12.21-hectare park was completed in 1954. Prior to the atomic bombing of August 6, 1945, the site was a bustling downtown section of the city, but the blast leveled it to ash and rubble.

Soon after the end of the war, the City of Hiroshima formulated a plan to turn the area into a park. In April 1949, a nationwide design competition was launched to make the park a permanent hub for appealing for peace in the world.

In August of that year, a design proposed by a group led by Kenzo Tange (1913-2005), then an assistant professor at the University of Tokyo, was selected from among 145 entries.

A key feature of the design is the fact that the A-bomb Dome, which became a World Heritage site in 1996, the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims, and Peace Memorial Museum, are all laid out on a single straight axis. In 2007, the Japanese government designated the park a Place of Scenic Beauty.

There are a variety of monuments in the park, including the Children’s Peace Monument, which was inspired by the death, from A-bomb-induced leukemia, of a 12-year-old girl named Sadako Sasaki; the Rest House, an A-bombed building; and a Phoenix tree which survived the A-bomb blast.