Kenzo Tange's letters
Twenty-three letters sent by Kenzo Tange, selected as the architect to design Peace Memorial Park, to then Hiroshima Mayor Shinso Hamai and other figures for about two years, from 1949, are kept at the Hiroshima Municipal Archives. In 1989, a former official working for the City of Hiroshima donated them to the archives on the condition that they be held from the public until after Mr. Tange’s death. The letters include previously unreported communications with Isamu Noguchi, a sculptor who designed the Peace Bridges, and an episode in which he negotiated with the central government to raise subsidies for the project by describing the facilities in the park as a “base for peace activities.”