Firebird-Past and Present
The walls of the first floor lounge in the Kyoto Museum for World Peace are decorated with two figures from the comic series Firebird by Osamu Tezuka, Japan's most famous cartoonist. As a junior high school student, Tezuka had to work in a factory in Osaka that produced construction materials for airplane hangars during the war. In
March 1945, there was an air raid on the plant that sent Tezuka running for his life. The Firebird series was Tezuka's means of expressing the horror of war and his strong desire for peace. Thus, we feel his Phoenix is a fitting symbol for the Museum's strong yearning to learn from the terrible lessons of war, and we hope that the foyer will be a space devoted to thoughts on how to achieve peace. |