First Section aerial view, Great Japan Technology Exposition, Okayama, c. 1930.

See also:
“The Exposition of the Shining Japan” advertising postcard, Hyogo, 1936.
Japan-Manchuria Great Industrial Exposition, Toyama Prefecture, 1936.
Exposition celebrating the 70th anniversary of the “Meiji Assembly”, Ueno Park, Tokyo, 1938.

“By the time of the interwar boom in industrial fairs, Japanese had developed a long experience with exhibitions.

“As a study of international and domestic industrial fairs published in 1937 observed, from their nineteenth century origins the exhibition form was designed to pursue four broad goals: economic development, international relations, commemoration, and colonization. The same study pointed out that exhibitions operated at a number of functional levels.

“They were educational, proffering ‘enlightenment’ and introducing new lifestyles. And because they represented a form of investment and offered a return on that investment, they were also a commercial enterprise. Beyond this, they acted as a vehicle for social policy, aiming to steer the country out of recession.

“… Meticulously planned and logistically complex, these fairs were staged on a grand scale. They were transforming events for the cities that hosted them … In 1926, twenty-seven different fairs, displays, and product shows were held, most sponsored by trade associations or business organizations … [T]he Kanazawa business community began to explore the idea of staging a major products fair in the city, culminating in the 1931 Fair to Promote Industry and Tourism. The situation was similar elsewhere.

“Niigata conducted a six-week fair to commemorate the opening of the port in the summer of 1926. Fifteen years later the city hosted the Great Exhibition on Asian Development and National Defense, linking the expansion of the port to the empire and the war effort. Okayama held an industrial fair in 1928; Sapporo hosted three between 1918 and 1931.

“… Provincial cities used the industrial fairs to market themselves, showcasing urban amenities, modern factories, and new streets and buildings as illustrations of the vitality and progress of their communities. While guidebooks urged visitors to see the city as an extended fairground, visitors’ main impressions were drawn from the exhibition space itself.”

– Beyond the Metropolis: Second Cities and Modern Life in Interwar Japan, by Louise Young, 2013