Children's Peace Monument

I decided to choose the “Children’s Peace Monument” also called the “Tower of a Thousand Paper Cranes” located at the Hiroshima Peace Park in Hiroshima Japan. This monument was sponsored by Hiroshima and Students Association for the creation of peace. The design was made by Kazuo Kikuchi, a professor at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. This monument was unveiled on May 5th 1958. The golden bell that hangs inside the monument in the shape of a crane was added and produced in 2003.
During the summer of 2007, I traveled to Japan with a group of students to volunteer in a preschool in Fukuoka Japan. While I was in Japan, the group of students and the chaperones that I traveled with took a trip to the Hiroshima Peace Park. While I was there I had the chance to look at a variety of different pieces of art, one being the Children’s Peace Monument. This particular monument stood out to me because I remembered reading the book when I was in fourth grade, and I also was interested in the art of paper cranes. My sister and I had been making paper cranes for a while, and it was amazing to see this monument and look at the millions of paper cranes people from all around the world had sent.
There is the one main monument that stands in the center of a circular plaque, and behind the monument there is several glass boxes filled with millions of paper cranes that people have sent from around the world. The paper cranes in the boxes create pictures, and are also a variety of several different colors. This makes the glass boxes very appealing to look at, and it draws your attention very quickly. It is almost impossible to look at all the paper cranes, what they are made of, and the pictures that they create because there are so many. I did have the chance to look at several of the glass boxes, and also took pictures of some of the pictures that they create.
Next to this monument is a marble plaque that states what the purpose of it is. Engraved on this plaque is “This monument stands in memory of all children who died as a result of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The monument was originally inspired by the death of Sadako Sasaki, who was exposed to radiation from the atomic bomb at the age of two. Ten years later Sadako developed leukemia that ultimately ended her life. Sadako’s untimely death compelled her classmates to begin a call for the construction of a monument for all children who died due to the atomic bomb. Built with contributions from more than 3,200 schools in Japan and donors in nine countries, the Children’s Peace Monument was unveiled on May 5th, 1958.” The rest of this plaque states what is located at the top of the monument and also the inscription on the stone plaque that lies under the monument.
This is instrumental art in my opinion because it was built with a purpose, and the monument itself is expressing its purpose, why it is there, and why it is so important. This statue reminds everyone tourist or anyone for that matter about what happened on August 6th, 1945. I think that everyone who looks at this piece of art is reminded about what happened to Hiroshima many years ago. I know that when I looked at this it reminded me of the book that I read while I was in fourth grade, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes.
Paper cranes now have a stronger meaning to me than they did before I visited this monument. They mean more than just a piece of paper. Each time I make a paper crane it reminds me of this monument and what Sadako’s classmates did for her when she was diagnosed with Leukemia. I remember that in this book “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes” the children tried to make Sadako a thousand paper cranes, and if they did this before she died, this meant she would survive. Unfortunately they were very close to this goal, but they did not succeed. Although I do not think that this was the reason she died, I do think that the message in behind it is important. Helping a classmate survive something as horrific as leukemia and doing whatever you can to make that person feel better is such an important thing to do.