Why go
The Peace Memorial Park is a deliberate postwar landscape, not empty land left by the bombing. The 1949 Peace Memorial City Construction Law supported rebuilding, and the park and museum gave public form to remembrance. This history helps visitors read the relationship between today's streets, memorials and preserved ruins.
The full story
Hiroshima faced further damage soon after the bombing when a September 1945 typhoon struck the region and damaged bridges, roads and railways. Reconstruction required housing, transport and a new civic plan. The 1949 Hiroshima Peace Memorial City Construction Law provided national support, and a design for Peace Memorial Park was selected that year. The city was also designated a City of Peace. The park occupies land that had been part of the busy Nakajima district before the bombing. Nearby, the damaged former exhibition hall was preserved as the Atomic Bomb Dome; the Peace Memorial Museum opened in 1955. Together, these places show two postwar decisions: to rebuild an inhabited city and to keep visible evidence of what had happened. Walking from the surrounding streets into the park makes that change of use especially clear.