Akita Municipal Junior College of Arts and Crafts University Extension Center Gallery Building

Akita Municipal Junior College of Arts and Crafts University Extension Center Gallery Building: Fifth Warehouse and Its Hybrid Roof Frame

The Akita Municipal Junior College of Arts and Crafts University Extension Center Gallery Building (秋田公立美術工芸短期大学大学開放センターギャラリー棟) is a single-storey timber warehouse built in 1934 in Araya Okawacho, Akita City, Akita Prefecture, and entered on the national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2000.

It is the fifth from the north of the eight buildings of the Former Araya National Warehouses: timber, single storey, with a sheet-metal roof and a building area of 660 square metres. The name is the one it bore when registered; at the time of registration it was open to the public as the gallery of the college's extension centre. Today the seven northern buildings are used as Atelier Momosada by Akita University of Art and Design, which opened in 2013.

Why It Was Registered

The Akita Municipal Junior College of Arts and Crafts University Extension Center Gallery Building is registration number 05-0061, listed under the criterion of contributing to the historic landscape of the country, and was registered with the other seven buildings on 26 September 2000.

The Agency's record for this building explains the interior. Each warehouse was originally divided into two rooms, east and west, each with two rows of posts down the middle forming an aisle. The roof frame combines a Japanese-style truss braced with struts between the central posts and triangular Howe trusses on either side, a hybrid of Japanese and Western methods that the Agency calls an original answer to the long spans.

What to Look For at the Akita Municipal Junior College of Arts and Crafts University Extension Center Gallery Building

Look up. Beneath one roof, a Japanese-style frame in the centre meets Western trusses on either side. If you get the chance to go in, trace where the posts stand and where the framing changes.

Visiting

The Akita Municipal Junior College of Arts and Crafts University Extension Center Gallery Building is a university building, and no official information on visiting the interior was found. Check with Akita University of Art and Design before going.

Directions, and details of the Araya Library at the southern end, which is open to the public, are on the Former Araya National Warehouses page.