Konan Girls' Junior and Senior High School Administration Building

The building at the heart of the campus

The Konan Girls' Junior and Senior High School Administration Building (甲南女子中学校・高等学校管理棟) in Morikitacho, Higashinada Ward, Kobe, is the central building of the school's campus, built in 1968 to a design by Murano Tōgo, and was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on April 3, 2020 (number 28-0731).

It stands in the middle of the campus, with Konan Women's University next door to the west. The special classroom building joins it on the east, the gymnasium rises north of its west end and the auditorium sits on the slope to the south; the other registered buildings fan out from here. The Agency for Cultural Affairs calls the Konan Girls' Junior and Senior High School Administration Building the centrepiece of Murano's campus plan.

A driveway through the building

The defining move is made at ground level. The middle of the ground floor is left open on pilotis so that a driveway passes straight under the building, and the main entrance opens off the east side of the drive.

From the entrance a covered walkway runs east to the special classroom building, keeping the routes of teachers and students apart. Cars and visitors are received at the centre of the building, and the daily traffic of the school is sorted along the walkway. For a building whose job is administration, the plan does a good share of the administering.

Size and structure

The Konan Girls' Junior and Senior High School Administration Building is built of reinforced concrete with a building area of 1,703 m², the largest of the eight registered buildings on the campus.

The Agency's own record is inconsistent about its height. The structure field gives 4 storeys above ground and 1 below, while the descriptive note calls it two storeys. Published sources do not settle the point, and the basic information below follows the structure field.

It was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape.

Visiting

The building is in daily use for teaching and school administration, and its interior is not open. The grounds are closed to the public, and because it stands at the centre of the campus it is hard to see from outside.

The school's history and directions to the campus are on the Konan Girls' Junior and Senior High School page.