Hirosaki Residents Pull 400-Ton Castle Keep 27 Centimeters After 2015 Quake Repairs

Q: With the 400-ton keep finally back on its base in 2026, why will its historic doors remain mysteriously locked to the public until 2033?

Because returning the keep to its original stone base does not end the restoration. Once Hirosaki Castle is set back in place in 2026, the keep itself will enter a new phase of preservation work, so its interior will remain closed until that work is finished. City officials have said the structure will be covered over after the move so specialists can carry out long-term conservation on the historic wooden tower. That includes preservation work on the keep’s body and exterior, with reports also citing further structural and seismic reinforcement, as well as repairs to elements such as the copper roof and facades. The delay reflects the castle’s exceptional status. Hirosaki’s keep is one of Japan’s 12 surviving original castle keeps and the only original one in the Tohoku region, so authorities have opted for slow, careful treatment rather than quick public access. The same preservation approach led them to move the 400-ton structure intact by the traditional hikiya method instead of dismantling it. So the “mystery” behind the locked doors is not secrecy but conservation: even after the keep is physically home again, the restoration project continues, and officials currently expect visitors to be allowed back inside around 2033.

3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Aug 30

About 480 Hirosaki residents, including 80 schoolchildren at a time, pulled the city’s 400-ton castle keep 27 centimeters on Saturday.
The move used hikiya—an old method of shifting buildings with ropes and rollers—to return the keep toward its original base.
Hirosaki Castle’s keep was first moved away in 2015 after an earthquake damaged the stone wall beneath it; the latest effort followed completion of those repairs.
The public hand-pull turned the restoration into a civic event, reviving a local tradition around one of northern Japan’s best-known landmarks.