Aoikan

The Aoikan (葵館) was a movie theater in the Tameike section of Akasaka in Tokyo, Japan. It existed since the mid–1910s as a high-class foreign film theater, featuring benshi such as Musei Tokugawa.

Aoikan (葵館)

Aoikan Theatre 1913
Aoikan Theatre 1924
Address	Minato-ku Akasaka, Tokyo Japan
Coordinates	35°40′12″N 139°44′24″E
Construction
Opened	July 1913
Reopened	1924
Demolished	1931

After the Great Kanto earthquake, it re-opened in October 1924 with a new, modern design created by prominent avant-garde artists. Seisaku Yoshikawa was in charge of architectural design, Yasuji Ogishima did the sculptural reliefs on the front of the building, and Tomoyoshi Murayama designed the interior.^[1][2] Murayama also did the cover illustrations for the theater's pamphlets in the first few years.^[3]

Film scholars such as Kenji Iwamoto have noted this theater's significance in Japanese cinematic modernism of the 1920s and 1930s.^[4]

References

1. Kikuchi (January 13, 2010). "Aoikan" (in Japanese). Shūzōko ichigōkan. Retrieved 5 April 2010.
2. "Aoikan rerīfu no chōkokuka Ogishima Yasuji" (in Japanese). Bunriha kenchiku hakubutsukan. Retrieved 5 April 2010.
3. "Aoikan to Aoi wīkurī" (in Japanese). Aoyama biyori. March 12, 2006. Retrieved 5 April 2010.
4. Kenji Iwamoto, ed. (1991). Nihon eiga to modanizumu, 1920-1930 (in Japanese). Riburo Pōto. ISBN 4-8457-0616-4.

External links

• Akasaka Aoikan The Aoikan pamphlet Aoi Weekly (in Japanese)