Enactment of the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties (1950) — The Horyu-ji Fire and the Merger of Three Earlier Laws

Overview

The Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties (Law No. 214 of 1950) aims to preserve and make use of cultural properties and to contribute to the cultural advancement of the nation. It was promulgated on 30 May 1950 and took effect on 29 August 1950. Its direct trigger was the fire in the Kondo (Golden Hall) of Horyu-ji on 26 January 1949, which badly damaged the hall's wall paintings. It was passed as a member-initiated bill and merged three earlier laws. The protection of art and craft works, Japanese swords included, was reorganized around it.

Background

The Horyu-ji fire shocked the country because celebrated ancient murals were damaged. Accounts of the cause differ: many mention carelessness with an electric appliance used during copying work, while some sources also mention arson. All agree that the incident exposed weaknesses in the old system and drove new legislation. In July 1950, between promulgation and enforcement, the Golden Pavilion of Kyoto was burned down by an arsonist, raising public concern further.

Merger of three laws

With the new law, the Preservation Law for Historic Sites, Places of Scenic Beauty and Natural Monuments, the National Treasures Preservation Law and the law on the preservation of important art objects were repealed. Items that had been national treasures under the old law were deemed Important Cultural Properties. The law classifies cultural properties into tangible, intangible and other categories, and allows national and local governments to designate or register them and to bear part of the cost of protection. Since the Meiji period swords had been designated or certified as national treasures, important cultural properties or important art objects according to their value; this law reorganized the institutional basis for that.

Relation to swords

A Japanese sword is a weapon but also a craft work whose steel, temper line and shape carry artistic value. Under the new law, art and craft works came under the framework of tangible cultural properties, with legal arrangements for conservation, exhibition, repair and management. Other postwar sword institutions followed, such as the 1954 approval of sword making and the 1958 registration system for art swords under the Firearms and Swords Control Law, which operated alongside cultural-property administration.

The postwar setting

Japanese swords had gone through confiscation and bans on possession during the Occupation and were seeking a path to preservation. The law gave institutional support to the shift from swords as weapons to swords as protected cultural property. Its aim of "utilization" as well as preservation underlies the culture of exhibition, study and appreciation in museums.

Aftermath

The law has been revised many times since; in 2021 a registration system with light regulation and public support was added for intangible cultural properties. Swords designated by the state or local governments are placed under a public framework for management, exhibition and repair. The 1950 enactment is a milestone in making the Japanese sword a protected shared cultural asset.