Former Kyushu Institute of Design

The Former Kyushu Institute of Design: Five 1970 Buildings Around the Fry Pan

The Former Kyushu Institute of Design is the collective name for five reinforced concrete university buildings completed in 1970 on Kyushu University's Ohashi Campus in Shiobara, Minami-ku, Fukuoka City, and all five were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on March 13, 2025. They carry the consecutive registration numbers 40-0231 to 40-0235, and each was listed under the same criterion: a building that has become a model of design.

The Kyushu Institute of Design (九州芸術工科大学, Kyūshū Geijutsu Kōka Daigaku) opened on April 1, 1968 as a national university with a single Faculty of Design and four departments: environmental design, industrial design, visual communication design and acoustic design. It merged into Kyushu University on October 1, 2003, and the campus now houses Kyushu University's School of Design. That merger explains the "Former" in every registered name. Staff and students know the same buildings by plainer labels such as Building 1 and Building 2.

The architect was Hisao Koyama (香山壽夫), who had joined the new institute as an associate professor when it opened, working with the institute's own Department of Environmental Design. His five buildings enclose a square plaza on all sides, and every one of them meets the plaza at second-floor level. Kyushu University describes the ensemble as the architectural symbol of the Ohashi Campus.

How the Former Kyushu Institute of Design Buildings Are Arranged

The Agency for Cultural Affairs locates each building by its compass position around the plaza. Read together, the entries give this plan of the Former Kyushu Institute of Design (current campus names in brackets):

• Environmental Imaging Building (Building 2): six storeys on the north side, its stepped face made of a double-height lounge below and balconies above
• Industrial Acoustics Building (Building 1): six storeys facing it across the plaza, in the same design, with its upper floors set back
• Special Image Facility (now 画像特殊棟): three storeys at the north-east corner, housing photographic studios
• Special Acoustic Facility (now 音響特殊棟): three storeys at the south-east corner, housing an anechoic chamber; it mirrors the Special Image Facility across a linking corridor, and the pair forms the plaza's east side
• Workshop (now 工作工房棟): three storeys, partly two, at the south-west, built for drawing and woodworking

Two six-storey blocks hold the plaza from north and south, and three lower buildings close the remaining sides. The School of Design's English-language site says Koyama took the idea of two facing buildings with open ground between them from the Salk Institute by Louis Kahn, his favorite architect. Over the years students began calling the plaza the "Fry Pan," a nickname the same site puts down to its frying-pan shape.

All five have exposed concrete frames and symmetrical elevations. A building list published by the School of Design credits the design to Koyama with four colleagues (塚越功, 岡道也, 橋場光 and 後藤元一), the institute's facilities office and the structural engineers K構造研究所; the contractors were Asanuma Corporation and Nishimatsu Construction.

Why the Former Kyushu Institute of Design Was Registered

According to Kyushu University, the Former Kyushu Institute of Design was valued both as architecture of Japan's postwar high-growth era and as an early major work by Koyama, who went on to become one of the leading Japanese architects of the postwar generation. The planned registration was announced in November 2024, and on December 5 that year Fukuoka City ran guided walks in which faculty from the School of Design explained the buildings on site.

None of the five has ever stopped being a working school building. The Agency's records list renovations alongside the 1970 construction date: the Environmental Imaging Building and the Workshop in 2014, the Environmental Imaging Building and Special Image Facility in 2019, and the Industrial Acoustics Building and Special Acoustic Facility in 2021. Kyushu University has said it intends to use the registration to open the Ohashi Campus further as a place of learning for people inside and outside the university.

Visiting the Former Kyushu Institute of Design

The nearest station to the Former Kyushu Institute of Design is Ōhashi (大橋) on the Nishitetsu Tenjin-Ōmuta Line. Kyushu University's directions from Fukuoka Airport or JR Hakata Station run by subway to Tenjin, then on foot to Nishitetsu Fukuoka (Tenjin) Station and by train to Ōhashi. The campus lies about a five-minute walk east of the station.

The School of Design's English site describes the approach: past the main gate the Design Commons, with the student cafeteria, stands on the left, and the walkway continues to a courtyard with a fountain and a large tree. The buildings of the Former Kyushu Institute of Design stand behind that courtyard. Classroom buildings are open only to students and staff, but the site notes that visitors can enjoy the geometric concrete forms and balconies from outside. Classes and research are in progress, so walk quietly.

The chance to go inside comes with the School of Design's annual open day. It was held on June 15, 2024, June 7, 2025 and June 6, 2026, with laboratory exhibits and hands-on booths across the campus (checked September 2026). Each building's own page covers its design and what to look for.