Hakodate Motomachi and Suehiro-cho

Hakodate Motomachi and Suehiro-cho is a port-town preservation district of about 14.5 hectares, spread over the slope that runs down from the foot of Mt. Hakodate to the harbor. Hakodate opened in 1859 as one of Japan's first trading ports, and the redevelopment that followed a major fire in the Meiji period fixed the basic layout of today's district. It was selected as an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings in 1989. The city regards the area as the birthplace of Hakodate.

What defines the town is the mix of building types. Western-style buildings such as consulates and churches, Japanese-style townhouses, and hybrid Japanese-Western buildings survive, mostly from the Meiji, Taisho and early Showa periods. The city describes the hybrid style as peculiar to Hakodate, so rather than hunting only for Western houses, look for the places on the slope where Japanese and Western buildings stand side by side. That is where the town's character shows. This mix arose from the inflow of foreign cultures after the port opened.

Restored buildings also give you something to look for. The former Jinju Life Insurance Hakodate branch, built in 1921, was converted from offices into the commercial building Daisanzaka Building. The Hokusho Denki building, built in 1909, had its exterior restored to its original appearance and became the shop-and-residence Hakodate Kanesa Sasaki House. The city records that around the Kanemori Warehouses and the Hakodate Orthodox Church (Resurrection Cathedral), preserving and using traditional buildings has drawn people to the townscape.

Preservation proceeded in stages: a survey in fiscal 1982, designation of a preservation district by the city in 1988, national selection in 1989, and the founding in 1990 of a preservation society made up mainly of building owners. From fiscal 1989 to fiscal 2025, the cumulative total is 179 repair projects, 12 landscape-improvement projects and 15 restoration projects. The society keeps residents involved, for example by holding concerts in the Catholic Motomachi Church, itself a traditional building.

The Hakodate Machinami Museum, which opens part of the former Miura House (built in 1922), shows materials on preservation districts across Japan and a folding screen of photographs of the western district taken in 1882. If you stop there before walking, you can compare today's slopes with how they looked well over a century ago. Then, going on to the Kanemori Warehouses and the Orthodox Church area, you can see preservation and reuse progressing together within one district.