Okura Kihachiro
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- In this Japanese name, the family name is Okura.
Baron Kihachiro Okura (大倉 喜八郎 Ōkura Kihachirō?, October 23, 1837- April 5, 1928) is an entrepreneur who built up the Okura-gumi and founded the giant Okura zaibatsu (literally financial cliques) and the Okura Shogyo Gakko which later became Tokyo Keizai University (Tokyo University of Economics) in 1949.
In contrast to most of the zaibatsu, the Okura zaibatsu was founded by someone from the peasant class. Okura Kihachiro moved from what is now Niigata Prefecture on the north shore of Honshū to Edo and worked for three years before starting his own grocery store in 1857. After selling groceries for eight years, [1] he became a weapons dealer during the turbulent years between the arrival of the Black Ships and the eventual overthrow in 1867 of the Tokugawa Shogunate.He become one of the principal business investors of the original Imperial Hotel completed in 1890.[2]
Kihachiro's son, Kishichiro, is credited with introducing the automobile into Japan.
Kihachiro, who made a fortune in his lifetime and lived in Toranomon, was a collector of Oriental antiques. In fear of valuable artworks flowing out to other countries, he built Japan’s first private museum, the Okura Shukokan, in 1917 by donating manycultural assets he had collected, the land, and the funds. The 5-story building stood on a property of about 10,000 square meters (2.5 acres), but it was damaged in the Great Kanto Earthquake. The Okura Shukokan that now stands adjacent to the Hotel Okura was rebuilt in 1928; it was based on a design by Chuta Ito, who is known for his design for Tsukiji Honganji Temple, and is designated as a cultural asset of Japan. The museum houses 2,000 pieces of Oriental paintings and sculptures, including such national treasures as the wooden statue of Samantabhadra and 35,000 volumes of Chinese literature.[3]
