Cypress Craftsman Hiroshi Miura

Life and Townscape Exhibition of Oedo

Fujieda City Provincial Museum, Fujieda City, Shizuoka

Saturday, February 1 - Sunday, March 30 2025

Admission Fee: 600 yen, Free for Junior High School Students and Younger

The NHK Taiga drama of Reiwa 7 is "Berabou - Tsutaju Eiga No Yumebanashi". The traditional culture of Oedo is attracting attention.
This exhibition features over 70 miniature models that are elaborate reproductions of merchant houses, bathhouses, and common people's tenement houses from the late Edo period at a scale of 1/10 and 1/20, allowing visitors to appreciate the townscape of Great Edo and the lives of common people.
The miniature model was created by Hiroshi Miura, a cypress craftsman. Originally a bathtub craftsman in Asakusa, Miura was commissioned in 1980 by the doll artist Juzaburo Tsujimura to create Miura-ya, a Geisha house in Edo Yoshiwara. In the 40 years until his death, he created more than 100 works.
This time, we will be exhibiting detailed miniatures, including a kimono shop, a bath house, a money exchanger, a barber shop, an inn, a boat inn, a tenement house for the common people, a billboard, a wooden watchtower, a fire watch tower in each town, and various Japanese boats, all detailed inside. Many models will be on display, making this the largest exhibition of Hiroshi Miura's posthumous works to date.
Please enjoy the atmosphere of the Edo town and the way of life of the common people, revived with the genuine craftsmanship cultivated in Asakusa.

Pamphlet

"Berabou" Edo Taito Taiga Drama Museum Edo Custom Doll Display

Saturday, February 1, 2025 - Late March (planned)

Edo custom dolls from the Shitamachi Museum (formerly Shitamachi Fuzoku Museum) will be on display for a limited time.

Dolls: Juzaburo Tsujimura, Accessories: Ichiro Hattori, Buildings: Hiroshi Miura

"Berabou" Edo Taito Taiga Drama Museum Website

Hiroshi Miura was born in 1926 to a family of bath tub craftsmen in Asakusa, inheriting the techniques of his father and grandfather who was a shipwright, and created cypress baths and buckets under the name of "Miura Bath Factory". With the passage of time, the demand for wooden bath tubs decreased, and during trial and error to make products other than bath tubs, he started making models of Japanese-style boats in his spare time. It was a pity that the type of ship that he had been familiar with since he was a child would disappear, and he wanted to somehow preserve it.

In 1980, he was commissioned to create a geisha house for the "Yoshiwara" exhibition in which Mr. Jusaburo Tsujimura worked on geisha dolls. At the exhibition held at a gallery in Kyobashi the following year, along with Mr. Tsujimura's dolls and Mr. Ichiro Hattori's gadget, the intricacy of the house became a big topic.

After that, he restored houses and ships in the Edo period to a scale of 1/10, and produced more than 100 works in the 38 years until his death.

Passed away in June 2019. 92 years old.