Konan Girls' Junior and Senior High School Guardhouse

The guardhouse at the main gate

The Konan Girls' Junior and Senior High School Guardhouse (甲南女子中学校・高等学校守衛室) in Morikitacho, Higashinada Ward, Kobe, is a single-storey gatehouse beside the school's main gate, designed by Murano Tōgo and completed in 1968; it was registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on April 3, 2020 (number 28-0736).

It stands on the south side of the campus next to the main gate. With a building area of 29 m², it is the second smallest of the eight registered buildings after the west gate guardhouse.

Block walls under a timber pyramid roof

The Konan Girls' Junior and Senior High School Guardhouse pairs concrete block walls with a pyramidal roof framed in timber, in the hōgyō-zukuri form, covered with asbestos-cement board.

Two courses of brick are laid as a band into the block walls, a single line of a different material that gives the small wall surfaces a measure. A bay window wraps around a corner on the outside.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs singles out how carefully the details are designed for so small a building.

Two guardhouses compared

A second guardhouse stands by the west gate on the northwest of the grounds. Both set a pyramidal roof on block walls, but the Konan Girls' Junior and Senior High School Guardhouse has the brick band in its walls. It was registered for its contribution to the historic landscape, while the west gate guardhouse was registered in 2022 as a model of design.

Visiting

Because the Konan Girls' Junior and Senior High School Guardhouse stands beside the main gate, you can locate it from outside the grounds. The campus is not open, however, so you cannot approach the building or look inside. Students and cars use the gate throughout the school day; if you take a photograph, stay out of the way and keep students out of the frame.

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