Viscount Saito Mizusawa Library

What Is the Viscount Saito Mizusawa Library?

The Viscount Saito Mizusawa Library (齋藤子爵水沢文庫, Saitō Shishaku Mizusawa Bunko) is a private library built in 1932 in Kichikoji, Mizusawa, Oshu City, Iwate Prefecture, whose book stack and reading room were each registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) on October 14, 2021 (Agency for Cultural Affairs). Its founder was Saito Makoto (斎藤實, 1858 to 1936), a Mizusawa native who served as Navy Minister and Governor-General of Korea before becoming Japan's 30th Prime Minister.

Both buildings now stand in the grounds of the Oshu City Saito Makoto Memorial Hall and belong to the city. On site the book stack is signposted simply as the stack (書庫) and the reading room as the former residence (旧宅), which are the names to look for.

How the Viscount Saito Mizusawa Library Came About

According to the memorial hall, when Saito resigned as Governor-General in 1931, officials and citizens in Korea presented him with money toward enlarging his villa. He chose to spend it on a library for his home town instead. The site of the house where he was born, in Kichikoji, had passed to other owners; the mayor and others helped him buy it back, and work was finished in 1932. A Navy Ministry engineer drew the plans and Obayashi Gumi built them.

A ridge tag kept in the reading room dates the framing ceremony to July 30, 1932, and the construction drawings survive as well, says the Oshu City Board of Education's facility plan. Saito meant the collection, which he had kept in Tokyo, to be read by the young people of his native district.

He spent little time here himself. The memorial hall records a visit in October 1932, on his first trip home as Prime Minister, a few more after that, and a last stay of about 20 days in August 1935. He was killed in the February 26 Incident the following year.

The town of Mizusawa, reluctant to have townspeople use a private residence as their library, put up the Kosui Memorial Library on the neighbouring plot in 1941. Saito's widow Haruko moved into the reading room of the Viscount Saito Mizusawa Library in March 1945, evacuated from Tokyo, and lived there until her death in 1971 at the age of 99. In 1970 the Saito family gave the books, the land and the buildings to the city of Mizusawa, and the Saito Makoto Memorial Hall opened on July 1, 1972.

The Two Buildings of the Viscount Saito Mizusawa Library

The book stack is a 2-storey steel-framed reinforced concrete building faced in red brick, holding about 38,000 volumes from Saito's collection. A covered passage links it to the reading room on its east side, a single-storey timber house that combines a reading room with a Western-style room and a kitchen and bath, so that Saito could stay there when he came home (Agency for Cultural Affairs; memorial hall).

The memorial hall gives the area of the grounds as 1,775.4 square metres. The Japanese-style reading room faces a garden with a pond, and the red-brick stack rises behind it. The exhibition building was added later for the memorial hall and is not part of the registration. Construction and detailing are covered on the page for each building.

Visiting the Viscount Saito Mizusawa Library

The two buildings of the Viscount Saito Mizusawa Library are open as part of the Saito Makoto Memorial Hall. Hours are 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The hall closes on Mondays and over the New Year (December 29 to January 3); when Monday is a public holiday or a substitute holiday it opens and closes on the Tuesday instead. Occasional extra openings and closures are announced by the hall.

Admission is 200 yen for adults, 100 yen each for groups of 15 or more, and free for high school students and younger. Entry is free for everyone on February 26, the anniversary of Saito's death, and on October 27, his birthday. Eating is not allowed in the buildings or the grounds.

The nearest station is Mizusawa on the JR Tohoku Main Line, 15 minutes away on foot or 8 minutes by bus or taxi. Shinkansen passengers get off at Mizusawa-Esashi and take a bus or taxi for 15 minutes. The Oshu City community bus (Z Bus) stops at Saito Makoto Kinenkan-mae, 2 minutes' walk away. Drivers leave the Tohoku Expressway at the Mizusawa interchange, 10 minutes off, and the car park takes up to 30 cars; coach parties are asked to call ahead (memorial hall).