Former Hatsubara Elementary School Auditorium

A hall that doubled as a gymnasium

Former Hatsubara Elementary School Auditorium (旧初原小学校講堂, Kyu-Hatsubara Shogakko Kodo) is a single-storey timber hall of 1954 at Hatsubara in Daigo Town, Ibaraki Prefecture, listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 10 May 2018. It has a tiled roof and covers 103 square meters. The 2 classroom blocks on the same grounds are roofed in metal sheet; this is the only building on the site carrying tile.

It stands at the western end of the row. A covered walkway runs northwest from Building No. 2 and meets the hall at its far end. Setting the assembly hall apart from the classrooms and linking the 2 with a corridor was a common arrangement at small rural schools, though here a detached kitchen block sits in between as well. Along the north edge, Building No. 1, Building No. 2, the kitchen and the auditorium follow one another from east to west, with the playground open to the south.

The roof is Kirizuma-zukuri and the entrance is Tsumairi, set in the gable end rather than the long side. Mortar render covers the external walls all the way up to the eaves soffit, leaving no timber exposed outside. Beside the 2 classroom blocks the hall reads as a single pale mass. Glazed windows are used liberally across those walls to bring light indoors.

The school behind the building was founded in October 1873. After long spells as a branch of the school at Sawara, it became Daigo Town Hatsubara Elementary School in April 1956, 2 years after this hall went up. Consolidation closed the school in March 1995, and the Hatsubara district community has cared for the site since.

Making one large room

Former Hatsubara Elementary School Auditorium was listed as a model of design. What the Agency for Cultural Affairs describes is the interior: a single undivided volume whose ceiling is lifted toward the centre so that the room could serve for indoor exercise as well as assembly.

A floor of 103 square meters is small for a gymnasium, which is precisely why the section matters. Raising the ceiling plane from the walls toward the middle adds volume without adding floor, enough for ball games and for a school gathered in one place. The demand for an unobstructed room and the limits of timber framing were reconciled in the roof space above people's heads.

A hall built to be more than a hall was not unusual at small postwar schools. Few of them could afford a whole building used only for ceremonies. The Council for Cultural Affairs report of March 2018 singled out this dual purpose, and assessed the 3 Hatsubara buildings together as school facilities that convey the character of the war years and the period that followed.

Registration took effect on 10 May 2018 under number 08-307. Building No. 1 of 1942 and Building No. 2 of 1960 were listed the same day. The hall was repaired in 1975.

What to look for

Begin at the gable end. The triangle of the roof faces you squarely, and the entrance sits beneath it. The classroom blocks are entered from their long sides, so the hall turns 90 degrees against them. The hall and the classrooms sit on one site and present themselves in opposite ways. Tile above, mortar below: the contrast in materials is sharpest from close up.

If you get inside, look up before anything else. The ceiling is low at the perimeter and climbs toward the middle. Raise your eyes and the slope declares itself, and the room feels larger than its floor plan suggests. The design intelligence of Former Hatsubara Elementary School Auditorium lies in its section rather than its plan.

The windows repay attention too. The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that glazing was used generously to secure daylight, which meant a room bright enough for assemblies and exercise without electric light. The thinking matches the glazed transoms ranged along the south walls of the classrooms. Every building on this site works hard at the same problem.

The hall has not fallen silent. Daigo Town records that residents put the former school buildings to work for things like festival drum practice, and a column-free room finds new uses more readily than most. Thirty years on, the floor and the joinery are still doing their job, which is what happens when people keep coming through a door.

Visiting

Former Hatsubara Elementary School Auditorium is not run as a visitor facility. The Hatsubara district community has managed it since the school closed and uses it for its own activities, so no opening hours or admission charge have been published. To see the interior or to photograph it, contact the Lifelong Learning Section of the Daigo Town Board of Education on 0295-72-1148 in advance. Community events can occupy the site on any given day.

From outside the grounds the east-west line of buildings is visible as a whole. The hall closes the line at its western end, and its tiled roof and pale walls set it apart from the classrooms. Step back far enough and you can follow how the covered walkway reaches across and meets it.

Hitachi-Daigo on the JR Suigun Line lies some 7 kilometers to the southeast, about 15 minutes away by road. Almost no bus serves that stretch, so count on a taxi from the rank or a hire car. Daigo Town puts the trip from Shinagawa, Tokyo or Ueno at 2 hours 20 minutes to 2 hours 50 minutes by JR, and roughly 1 hour by road running north on National Route 118 from the Naka interchange of the Joban Expressway.