A Forest Building That Borrows Two Shapes
Deep in Hokkaido University's Tomakomai Experimental Forest stands a small timber building that once served as a specimen store. Completed in 1935 (Showa 10), it now carries the name Forest Memorial Hall. What makes it unusual is that it joins two very different building shapes into one.
The front block is chapel-like: single story, clad in clapboard, with a gabled roof and buttresses stepping along the sides. Behind it runs a second wing shaped like a livestock barn, capped with a gambrel, or koma-gata, roof whose slope breaks partway down. A building for storing forestry specimens thus wears, front and back, the outlines of a church and a barn.
Why It Was Registered
The building was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property on 28 April 2000, with the gazette notice on 17 May, under the criterion recognizing it as a model of its type. Its interest lies in period character. The three-part run of dormer windows in the roof and the long horizontal windows set between the side buttresses are features that speak clearly of the 1930s, when this kind of timber institutional building was being designed with a light, up-to-date sensibility.
An experimental forest is a working landscape for research, and its buildings are usually plain and utilitarian. That a specimen store from the interwar years survives with this much considered detail, and has been given a second life as a memorial hall, is what earned it recognition.
What to Look For
Approach the chapel-like front and note the buttresses along the flanks. They give the wall a stepped, ecclesiastical rhythm that a plain shed would not have, and between them run the long horizontal windows that mark the period. Look up to the roof and find the three dormers set in a row, a small but telling touch of 1930s design.
Then walk around to see how the barn-like rear wing, with its gambrel roof, is attached, and how the two forms read as a single building. The hall sits within the Tomakomai Experimental Forest, an area with public trails, so a visit combines a walk through the forest with a look at one of its most characterful structures. Confirm current opening and access for the forest before you go.
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Q&A
- What was the building originally for?
- It was the specimen store of the Tomakomai Experimental Forest, built in 1935, and now serves as the Forest Memorial Hall.
- Why does it look like a church and a barn?
- A chapel-like clapboard block with buttresses fronts a barn-like wing with a gambrel roof, so two forms are joined in one building.
- What is a gambrel roof?
- It is a roof, called koma-gata in Japanese, whose slope changes angle partway down, a shape often seen on barns.
- Can I visit it?
- It stands within the Tomakomai Experimental Forest, which has public trails. Confirm current opening and access before visiting.
Basic Information
| Name | Forest Memorial Hall, Tomakomai Experimental Forest, Hokkaido University (former Specimen Store) |
|---|---|
| Location | Takaoka, Tomakomai, Hokkaido |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (registered 28 April 2000; gazette notice 17 May 2000) |
| Built | 1935 (Showa 10) |
| Structure | Timber, single story, tile roof; building area 119 m²; 1 building |
| Owner | Hokkaido University (National University Corporation) |
| Access | Within the Tomakomai Experimental Forest; confirm current opening and access |
References
- National Database of Designated Cultural Properties (Agency for Cultural Affairs) — Forest Memorial Hall, Tomakomai Experimental Forest (former Specimen Store)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00001544
- Hokkaido University — official site
- https://www.hokudai.ac.jp/
Last verified: 2026.07.02