Former Uwaoka Elementary School Building 2

What Former Uwaoka Elementary School Building 2 Is

Former Uwaoka Elementary School Building 2 is a single-storey wooden classroom block of 1937 at Uwaoka in Daigo Town, Kuji District, Ibaraki Prefecture, and it became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2014. It has a gabled (Kirizuma-zukuri) sheet-metal roof, a building area of 326 square meters, and a linking corridor included in the registration.

Where it sits matters. It stands parallel to and behind the 1910 block, joined to it by that corridor. The ground falls away towards the south, so the front of the terrace is held up by a stone retaining wall, and Former Uwaoka Elementary School Building 2 takes advantage of the change in level to face south like its neighbour. From the schoolyard you see a second ridge line rising behind the first.

The school at Uwaoka opened in 1879 with 51 pupils and moved to this site in 1911. Numbers went on climbing, reaching 278 pupils in 1960. Former Uwaoka Elementary School Building 2 belongs to the middle of that curve, put up when the older block had run out of rooms.

The school closed in March 2001. A local body, the Uwaoka School Site Preservation Association, took over the upkeep, and the buildings are now opened to visitors and lent out for events.

A King-Post Truss over 31 Meters

Former Uwaoka Elementary School Building 2 runs 31 meters along the ridge. Its roof is carried on king-post trusses: a vertical post drops from the apex to the tie beam, with struts spread out from it, so the load is resolved through triangles rather than stacked timbers.

The 1910 block next door uses the older Japanese method (Wagoya), in which short posts stand on beams to carry the purlins. Two roof systems, 27 years apart, sit side by side on one plot. There are not many places where the moment when Japanese school carpentry changed hands can be read simply by walking from one room into the next.

The outside walls are boarded (Shitami-itabari). The earlier block uses sasarago shitami, in which the retaining battens are notched to sit against the stepped boards; the record for Former Uwaoka Elementary School Building 2 lists plain boarding. A little labour has been taken out of the detail.

The interior now holds 2 rooms, an assembly hall and a multipurpose room, but the original plan had 4 classrooms opening off a corridor on the north side. Repairs were carried out in 1963. Partitions could be taken out and the floor opened up precisely because the trusses, and not internal walls, hold the roof.

Registered as Evidence of a School Expanding

Former Uwaoka Elementary School Building 2 was entered in the register of Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 19 December 2014, under registration number 08-0264. The criterion applied was that the building contributes to the historic landscape of the country. The difference between registration and designation is explained under Registered Tangible Cultural Property.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes this block as showing how schools were enlarged in the early Showa period. More children enrolled, classrooms ran short, and a block of similar size went up behind the existing one. The sequence in which a country school grew is legible in the arrangement of the plot itself.

Daigo Town notes that the Uwaoka blocks follow the school design guidance the Ministry of Education issued in 1895, and adds that Buildings 2 and 3 show advances in structure and in fittings. If the earliest block preserves a Meiji template, Former Uwaoka Elementary School Building 2 records the stage that came after it.

What to Look For at Former Uwaoka Elementary School Building 2

Start in the assembly hall. Where the ceiling is left off, the king post and its struts are visible overhead, and the open floor below suddenly makes structural sense.

Then walk the connecting corridor from the older block. The corridor is part of the registration. A few paces of board floor carry you from a Meiji building into a Showa one, and the ceiling height and the spacing of the windows shift as you go.

Outside, the stone retaining wall that holds the terrace in front of Former Uwaoka Elementary School Building 2 is worth a look. Cutting a level platform out of a slope was the first job on this site, and the whole arrangement of the blocks rests on it.

Look at the gable end as well. The earlier block is hipped, so its roof turns down at the corners; here the triangle of the roof is shown flat at the end wall. What the trusses are doing inside is what the building looks like from outside.

Visiting Former Uwaoka Elementary School Building 2

The site opens on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with no admission charge, and Former Uwaoka Elementary School Building 2 can be entered. Weekdays are closed, although Daigo Town keeps the buildings open every day through the summer holidays and across November. Filming closes the site from time to time, so it pays to check before setting out.

Most visitors arrive by car. Reckon on about 65 minutes from the Naka interchange on the Joban Expressway by way of National Route 118, or about 75 minutes from the Yaita interchange on the Tohoku Expressway via Routes 4, 293 and 118. There is a car park beside the schoolyard. Coming by train, get off at Hitachi-Daigo on the JR Suigun Line; the prefecture's official tourism site puts the bus ride at 5 minutes.

Groups and school parties need to file an application form in advance with the Tourism and Commerce Division of Daigo Town, on 0295-72-1138. Visitor information gives the address as 957-3 Uwaoka, while the registered address reads 914 and other lots.

Commercial filming goes through a separate procedure for production companies. Nothing in the town's guidance covers personal photography, so follow whatever notices are up on the day. The assembly hall is sometimes booked for events, and the interior may be unavailable then.