Aioi Bridge Audio Guide

Aioi Bridge: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Aioi Bridge

   Welcome to Aioi Bridge, in the heart of Hiroshima. You are standing on one of the most unusual bridges in Japan. Look at its layout and you will see a T. One long span crosses the river just north of the island district of Nakajima-cho. A shorter arm drops from the middle of that span and leads toward the island. That arm is also the north entrance to Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. The bridge is a crossing, a piece of engineering and a witness all at once. Its distinctive shape made it the aiming point for the atomic bomb in 1945. The bridge you walk on today dates from 1983 and was built to a similar specification as the original. Over the next few minutes we will look at how this odd T-shape came about and what the name means. We will also cover what happened here on the morning of August 6, 1945, and what remains of the original bridge today.

2. 02

   A Bridge Shaped Like a T

   Let's begin with the shape. The first Aioi Bridge was built in 1932 as a bridge only for streetcars. Two years later, in 1934, it was extended from its central section to a point called Jisenji-no-hana, which is now the north end of Peace Memorial Park. That extension gave the bridge its T-shape, a rare sight in Japan. There is a second layer to the story. At the southern end, two wooden bridges, one on the east and one on the west, had stood since 1878. For the short period before they were taken down, they combined with the new bridge to form an H-shape across the water. Hiroshima briefly had a bridge layout that looked like a letter of the alphabet when seen from above. The name fits the design. Aioi is said to come from the way the bridges meet one another. Stand at the junction and you can see why it suits a bridge made of spans that join in the middle.

3. 03

   The Aiming Point, August 1945

   The shape that made the bridge a local curiosity also made it easy to recognize from the air. Together with its position close to the city center, this made the original Aioi Bridge the aiming point for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The blast shook the bridge violently. One survivor described watching the bridge lift several meters into the air and then settle back down onto its foundation. The railing was bent over by the force of the explosion. Girders were deformed too, and the bridge was not swept away, even in a city that had been devastated all around it. Take a moment with that image. Concrete and steel, carrying streetcars the day before, were thrown upward and then set back down. That is one reason this bridge is treated as a place of memory as well as a crossing.

4. 04

   Repair, Replacement and What Remains

   After the war, the damaged bridge was repaired and returned to service. It carried traffic for nearly four decades before it was replaced in 1983 by a new bridge that closely resembles the original. When you walk across today, you are crossing that rebuilt version, which keeps the T-shaped form that defined the bridge. The original is not entirely gone, though. Old pillars still stand at the foot of the bridge, and they carry the marks of the bombing. Some of the girders deformed by the blast are displayed in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. A surviving portion of a floor girder from the original bridge was donated to the museum, so you can see part of the bridge itself up close there. Look for the pillars as you walk. They are small details that are easy to miss, and they tell you more than a plaque might.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   That is Aioi Bridge: a T-shaped crossing, a wartime aiming point, and now a gateway. The short arm of the T leads straight into Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. The bridge that was a target in 1945 now brings visitors into the park by foot. As you continue, pay attention to the way the bridge meets the water and the island. Notice where the long span ends and the shorter arm begins, and think about how that rare shape looked from the air. If you are heading to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, keep an eye out for the girder from this very bridge, and compare it with the structure you just crossed.