ABSTRACT
The majority of the new domain capitals were rebuilt over existing towns to the criteria of the new age, and some were aggregations of existing foundations. Hagi-ura was a green field site partly submerged in the Japan Sea when it was designated as a place of exile for the defeated Mori. The shared model for the conceptual plan of Hagi was Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s Osaka. His Osaka, in turn, incorporated the layers of urban development which had first commenced in 645. Both Edo and Hagi were in large part sites requiring large areas of reclamation, with consequent flat visually unrelieved internal areas. In the case of Edo, the mountains which formed to focus of the grid and street axes were relatively large and distant, whereas in Hagi, the foci were the high points of the range which enclosed the delta. The construction of Hagi was carried out under similar conditions and technical constraints but on a reduced scale to Edo.
