A manhole cover as an objet d'art

Having transformed from functional items to artistic collectibles, manholes have achieved a cult status in many countries

An old friend from Chandigarh, now settled in the US, recently boasted on one of our WhatsApp groups that he had paid $20,000 (about Rs 17 lakh) to buy himself a manhole cover from The City Beautiful. Chandigarh manholes have become collector’s items over the years. I am not surprised by the inordinately large sum paid out for the Le Corbusier-Pierre Jeanneret-designed sewer cover: Sotheby’s too auctioned one in London recently for Rs 10.15 lakh. Designed to celebrate the first modern city of the country, these covers were installed in the first phase of Chandigarh till 1970, after which the administration switched to concrete lids for the manholes. But meanwhile, like the famous Pierre Jeanneret Chandigarh chairs, the manhole covers too had achieved cult status.

“Manholers” or manhole enthusiasts are not peculiar to Chandigarh. There are over a million of them in Japan alone. There are 15 million manhole covers embedded on the roads throughout Japan, with over 12,000 variations. Manhole covers last for around 30 years, and 100 thousand covers are replaced every year. The Gesuidō Kōhō (GKP), is in fact a Japanese community platform that promotes manhole art as tourist attractions. The most popular covers are those featuring the clock tower in Sapporo, the cover depicting the streets of Koedo in Kawagoe, and the ones featuring the Osaka Castle.

Tama City developed a motif with Hello Kitty, because it has a theme park where you can meet the character. In Yokohama City, Pikachu from the popular Pokémon games transformed into a manhole cover designed with scenery from Yokohama. Since last year, this manhole cover has welcomed tourists at Sakuragi-cho Station Square. In Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward, you can see Astro Boy and other characters from the Astro Boy series on the streets. You can also find a Monchhichi (a line of Japanese stuffed monkey toys) cover in Katsushika, Tokyo.

Famous for being the birthplace of local jeans, Kurashiki has Jeans Street, which is filled with denim stores. Along this street, you can spot an indigo-blue manhole cover featuring the street’s logo!

Japan has manhole covers for sports teams as well. In Hiroshima City, there are manhole covers installed with a motif featuring Carp Boy, a character for the professional baseball team Hiroshima Carp, for people visiting the team’s home ground, Mazda Stadium. In Yokohama City, Marinos-kun, the character for the professional soccer team Marinos, guides people, on manholes, with arrows from the nearest station to the team’s home ground, Nissan Stadium.

It all started with a nationwide campaign to improve the image of the sewage system, which was seen as “dirty, smelly and dark”. In response, designer manhole covers first appeared in Japan in 1977, at Naha City. They featured a design of happy fish in water that had been cleaned by the sewer system. This initiative drew attention, and so designer manhole covers came to be promoted to give the sewers a good impression. These covers began to be produced with colours in 1981 — in fact, coloured by hand, one cover at a time. Municipalities across Japan today pitch designs to the local citizenry every year featuring the pride of the locality, such as scenic spots, or specific local flower motifs engraved with ginkgo tree leaves, and such. Cover designs are even based on paintings from student contests and those by famous designers.

Today, the manhole mania has led to innovative “Manhole Cards” being marketed to collectors — at the last count there were 222 designs in circulation, with over a million pieces sold. GKP, in fact, hosts a “Manhole Summit” —last year 3,000 enthusiasts attended.

Recently, Maebashi City in Gunma Prefecture replaced old manhole covers and decided to sell each old cover for 3,000 yen apiece. This resulted in a fierce bidding war with more than 100 people seeking to purchase the 10 covers on offer. Among those on offer was a very old manhole cover believed to be from the pre-1970s. One manholer even requested the City to preserve the cover rather than sell it as it was very “valuable”! 

Manhole covers are evolving. Music composer Yuji Koseki comes from Fukushima City. Manhole covers with the writing “Yuji Koseki’s Hometown” in Japanese, have been designed by the City so that the QR code on them can link with an app on a smartphone to play videos with information on the town. Also, Tokorozawa City is promoting collaborations with corporate houses to increase the revenue of its sewer business. This city installed Japan’s first illuminated manhole covers using LEDs this year in Higashi-Tokorozawa, sponsored by a lighting company. These shining manhole covers also help prevent crime by brightening up the streets.

But why collect manhole covers anyway? UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn may have an answer.  Calling it a “zany” pastime, he said his drain-spotting hobby was born out of a keen interest in social history. Inspired, are you? 

The writer is managing director of Rediffusion