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Challenge to Restore the Heritage Buildings Damaged by the 2011 Tsunami Attacks, Kesennuma, Japan



Author(s)

Hideo Izumida

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DOI:10.17265/1934-7359/2015.08.012

Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering , Toyohashi University of Technology, Aichi 441-8580, Japan

A large number of towns along the Sanriku coastal line were swept away by tsunami attacks on March 11, 2011. Although some heritage buildings survived, the damage condition was too severe to carry on repair and restore them to the owners. As the municipal cultural heritage division and local cultural society in Kesennuma City were looking for possibility to save these damaged heritage buildings, the author gave them full assistance. To apply for fund for the repair and restoration work to related foundations, the author made an investigation of the damage conditions, prepared measured drawings, fundamental restoration plans and cost estimates. Domestic and international foundations granted funds to our projects for three years in May 2012, and we formed a restoration body to take responsibility of repair and restoration work. But soon, we were faced with several difficulties. The first is that we had to wait for a long time until the authority fixed the town redevelopment plan, meeting the National Guideline of Tsunami-Free Redevelopment. The second is that the building cost continued to increase during rapid-development periods. Although the author expected to complete the whole work within three years, the progress is really slow, and has not amounted to a quarter.

Heritage building, repair, restoration, tsunami, disaster, Japan, timber structure.