Akita Municipal Junior College of Arts and Crafts Training Building No. 2

Akita Municipal Junior College of Arts and Crafts Training Building No. 2: A Warehouse on Reclaimed Ground

The Akita Municipal Junior College of Arts and Crafts Training Building No. 2 (秋田公立美術工芸短期大学実習棟二号棟) 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 second 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 served as a studio for craft and industrial design. 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 Training Building No. 2 is registration number 05-0058, 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 notes that the eight warehouses stand on land reclaimed with spoil from improvement works on the Omono River between 1917 and 1938. Their use as agricultural warehouses ended in 1990, after which the seven northern buildings became distinctive campus facilities for the junior college.

What to Look For at the Akita Municipal Junior College of Arts and Crafts Training Building No. 2

The flat ground under the row is itself a record of the river works. Akita City explains that the site near the river mouth suited a warehouse fed by rice arriving by water.

Visiting

The Akita Municipal Junior College of Arts and Crafts Training Building No. 2 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.