Tomioka City Social Education Center

A training hall born of an imperial visit

Tomioka City Social Education Center (富岡市社会教育館, Tomioka-shi Shakai Kyōikukan) is a modern Japanese-style complex in Ichinomiya, Tomioka City, Gunma Prefecture, completed in 1936, and five of its structures (the auditorium, the entrance and office building, the lecturers' room building, the Japanese-style room building and the main gate) were each registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on July 8, 2008. It stands on raised ground a short walk from Ichinomiya Nukisaki Shrine, the historic first-ranked shrine of the old province of Kōzuke.

The story starts in November 1934. Army grand maneuvers were held in Gunma that month, and Emperor Showa, visiting the prefecture, paid his respects at Nukisaki Shrine. In the wake of the visit a promotion society was formed to encourage reverence for the gods and ancestors, and a building campaign that joined officials and ordinary residents got under way.

What the society completed in March 1936 was the Tōgoku Keishin Dōjō, a residential hall for the spiritual training of young men and women. It cost 81,952 yen 95 sen, and every sen came from donations by people across the prefecture.

The prefecture ran the hall once it opened. After the war it changed names and roles several times while remaining a place for adult education, workshops and courses, passing through a period as the Gunma Prefectural Social Education Center. Tomioka City has managed it since April 2005.

A staggered plan by the Oe Kokufu studio

The design came from the Oe Kokufu Kenchikujuku, the practice led by the architect Oe Shintaro, who was active from the late Meiji era until the years before the war. Tomioka City describes Tomioka City Social Education Center as a deliberately Japanese take on modern architecture, and as one of the few buildings that still convey the atmosphere of the early Showa years.

The city's own list of features is specific: a carriage porch and Shikidai step at the main entrance, wings set back one after another in a diagonal gankō ("flying geese") arrangement, a garden planned together with the buildings, and elements drawn from Shoin-zukuri and Sukiya-zukuri design. Materials are of high quality, and the complex has kept much of its original appearance. The local tourism association calls it an all-hinoki building.

The staggered plan pays off as soon as you walk in. The roofs do not line up in one long row; they step back in stages, so a very long building never looks flat.

According to Gunma Prefecture's convention guide, a full renovation including seismic strengthening and restoration work was carried out once the building passed 80 years of age.

Sources differ on the date. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database lists all five registered structures as dating from 1935, while Tomioka City gives March 1936 as the date of construction. No primary source seen so far explains the gap.

The five registered structures and how to walk the site

Registration was made structure by structure, so each of the five is a registered property in its own right.

• The auditorium building covers 314 square metres and centres on a 60-mat hall, fronted by a large hip-and-gable end.
• The entrance and office building, 193 square metres, faces south near the middle of the site and carries the carriage porch.
• The lecturers' room building and the Japanese-style room building were registered on the same day and form part of the same staggered line of wings.
• The main gate is a Yakuimon 3.6 metres wide, with flanking walls and a small wicket door.

The main gate stands southwest of the carriage porch. Step through it and the entrance and office building faces you across the top of the rise, its gabled porch projecting on the east side. The auditorium building is joined to the rest by a covered passage on its west face.

One detail ties the five together. All are roofed in Sangawara-buki pantiles with only the eaves edged in sheet iron. Follow that edge from roof to roof and you can see a single hand at work across very different shapes.

Visiting and getting there

Tomioka City Social Education Center still works as an adult education facility, and entry is free. The tourism association lists opening hours of 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., closed on Mondays (the following day when Monday is a holiday), on national holidays and over the New Year period. The national modern-heritage network Zenkin gives 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., so it is worth calling ahead (0274-62-2033) to confirm.

Rooms including the auditorium can be hired. Tomioka City says applications must be made in person at the center between 3 months and 3 days before the date of use. Exhibitions and tea gatherings are held at certain times of year, and a room booked for an event may be closed to casual visitors that day.

By rail, the center is about 15 minutes on foot from Joshu-Ichinomiya Station on the Joshin Line. Walking over from Nukisaki Shrine, the place that set the whole project in motion, is the most natural way to arrive.