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Vintage Japanese Post Box: A Warm Design Rooted in the Meiji Era
火事に強い鉄製の朱色丸型ポスト（郵便差出箱１号）
After a short photowalk through Tokyo’s Ameya-Yokocho shopping district, I wandered into a nearby park where, near its entrance, I came across this vintage Japanese post box. Though its design dates back to the postwar years, it remains in everyday use, standing quietly in front of the Shitamachi Museum (台東区したまちミュージアム).
The continued presence of this post box aligns naturally with the museum’s mission to preserve and document the everyday culture of Tokyo’s Showa era (1926-1989). It serves as a small but tangible reminder of how ordinary objects once shaped daily life.
This particular cylindrical post box design traces its origins to 1949, when iron once again became widely available for civilian use following the end of World War II, allowing durable public infrastructure to return to cities across Japan.
Nearly eight decades later, I still encounter this style of post box in rural towns and older urban neighborhoods, and it is these small, human-centered design choices that continue to draw my attention.
Unlike the boxy, utilitarian design of modern post boxes in use today, this earlier form feels warmer and more considerate: the softly rounded lip extending over the slot like a well-worn cap, designed to keep out the rain; the cylindrical body, less obtrusive and better suited to the narrow, crowded streets of Tokyo and other cities at the turn of the twentieth century; and the use of fire-resistant iron, painted in a bright vermilion red (朱色, shuiro), a color also closely associated with Shinto torii gates.
While my initial impulse to photograph this post box was rooted in a sense of nostalgia, standing in front of it prompted a deeper reflection on how thoughtful design, particularly from the Meiji era (1868–1912), seems to have been shaped by everyday needs. In cases like this, those practical considerations have allowed certain forms to quietly persist long after their era has passed, continuing to function as part of the modern city.
- Location: Shitamachi Museum, Taito Ward, Tokyo
- Timestamp: 2026/01/02・14:05
- Fujifilm X100V with 5% diffusion filter
- 23 mm ISO 160 for 1/125 sec. at ƒ/5
- Classic Negative film simulation
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