The museum of Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. in Ichigaya, Tokyo, features book making process by an old letter press printing machine.

This building was originally built in 1925 as a sales office building of DNP, one of the largest printing companies in Japan.  Later, it was used as a office building of the main printing factory of the company till 2010 with several enlargements and renovations.  In accordance with the relocating plan of the oldest factory in Ichigaya, the birthplace of the company, this site was decided to transform into a green zone.  The old building, which survived the repeated air raids during the Second World War, was faithfully restored to utilize as a museum focusing on printing in 2020.  This is a part of the green zone construction project.  In the restoration, they strived to follow the original design by referring the then blueprints, documents and photos.  Even the original architectural decorations and details that were revealed when the retrofitted parts were removed for the work were considered important and used as references.  The museum offers printing demonstrations using an old letter press printing machine, and visitors can enjoy the experience of making books on the machine.

Jason Hardy.

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