A Brick Strongbox for Books
Kyu Daini Koto Gakko Shoko (旧第二高等学校書庫), the former library stack of the Second Higher School, is a brick building of 1910 at Katahira in Aoba Ward, Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture, now used by Tohoku University as its cultural properties store and entered on the national register of tangible cultural properties on 27 October 2017.
It sits in a stand of trees near the middle of the Katahira campus, and you can walk past without noticing it. Red brick, three storeys, a hipped roof of black pantiles, a footprint of only 83 square metres. The proportions are those of a tower rather than a building, which is exactly what it is: a container for books, built tall because the site was small and the collection was growing.
The reason it is brick has nothing to do with style. In 1910 the school around it was timber. A fire in any one of those wooden halls would have taken the library with it unless the books were kept somewhere that would not burn. The stack was the fireproof core of a combustible campus.
Reading the Brickwork
The walls are laid in English bond, courses of headers alternating with courses of stretchers, the pattern that dominated Meiji-era brick construction in Japan. Around the base runs a band of brick in a different colour, set on a course of dressed stone. At the sill line of each floor another horizontal band of reddish-brown brick crosses the wall, flush with the surface rather than projecting: a string course drawn in colour instead of relief.
At the eaves the brickwork breaks into dentils, the row of small blocks borrowed from classical cornices. Pilasters stand at the four corners and at the midpoint of the side and rear walls, and each one thickens as it descends, so the building visibly widens toward the ground. The effect is stability, and the intent was structural as much as visual.
The entrance is on the east gable end, under a segmental arch. Two layers of door close it: iron-plate leaves opening outward and a sliding glass screen inside. Ventilation openings are set into the base, a detail borrowed from the dozo, the plastered storehouses that Japanese merchants used for the same purpose of keeping valuables away from fire and damp.
Inside, the floors rest on free-standing timber posts and the roof is carried on a wooden truss. Each storey is a single unpartitioned room with plastered walls, and a wooden staircase climbs at the southeast corner. The registration criterion cited is that the building is a model of design; the registration number is 04-141, from the eighty-eighth round.
What Remains of a School
The Second Higher School began in 1887 as the Second Higher Middle School, took its later name under the Higher School Ordinance of 1894, and was absorbed into the new Tohoku University in 1949. Its buildings occupied this ground from August 1889 to July 1925, thirty-six years, before the school moved to Kitarokubancho and, after the 1945 air raids destroyed that campus, to Mikamine.
The stack did not go with it. Ownership passed to Tohoku Imperial University in 1925, and the building has served as a store for archaeological material from then until now. Of everything the Second Higher School put up on this site, very little survives. This is one of the few pieces.
The construction date rests on a comprehensive survey of Miyagi's modernisation-era heritage published by the prefectural board of education in March 2002, supported by the school's own annual register, in which the stack first appears on the site plan in the 1910 to 1911 edition.
Repairs are documented at intervals: interior work in 1980 covering floorboards, fittings and wall patching; roof and external wall repairs in 2001 after water ingress; and in 2012 the making good of earthquake damage from the previous year, when cracks in the external walls were filled and dislodged tiles relaid. The original bricks remain.
Because the building is a working store, the interior is closed. The exterior is accessible on foot at any time; the Katahira campus is generally open to pedestrians, and there is no fee. An old weeping cherry stands nearby, planted in the Second Higher School years, which makes early April the moment to time a visit. Photography of the exterior is unrestricted. Itsutsubashi Station on the subway Namboku Line and Aoba-dori Ichibancho Station on the Tozai Line are each about five to ten minutes away on foot, and the former architecture department building of Sendai Higher Technical School stands at the southern edge of the same campus.
- 📍 Plan Your Visit to Miyagi
- Find tours, activities & transport passes near Former Second Higher School Book Store (Tohoku University Cultural Property Repository)
- [ Matsushima Bay Cruise & Sendai Food Tours ]
Q&A
- Can visitors go inside the former Second Higher School library stack?
- No. The building holds Tohoku University's archaeological collections and the interior is closed to the public. The exterior can be viewed freely from within the Katahira campus, which is open to pedestrians, with no admission fee. Photographing the outside is unrestricted.
- Why was the former Second Higher School library stack built of brick?
- Fire protection. The school's other buildings in 1910 were timber, and a brick structure kept the book collection safe from a fire that started elsewhere on the campus. The base ventilation openings and the double doors, iron outside and glass within, belong to the same defensive logic used in traditional plastered storehouses.
- What is the brick bond used at the former Second Higher School library stack?
- English bond, alternating courses of headers and stretchers. It was the standard method in Meiji-period Japan. The walls also carry horizontal bands of reddish-brown brick at each floor's sill line, laid flush with the surface, and a row of dentils at the eaves.
- How is the former Second Higher School library stack used today?
- As Tohoku University's cultural properties store, marked D09 on campus maps. Ownership transferred to Tohoku Imperial University in 1925 when the Second Higher School moved away, and the building has housed archaeological material continuously since then.
- Where exactly is the former Second Higher School library stack, and how do I get there?
- Near the centre of Tohoku University's Katahira campus at 2-1-1 Katahira, Aoba Ward, Sendai. Itsutsubashi Station on the subway Namboku Line and Aoba-dori Ichibancho Station on the Tozai Line are both roughly five to ten minutes on foot. Look for the red brick among the trees rather than along the main campus road.
Basic Information
| Name | Kyu Daini Koto Gakko Shoko (former Second Higher School library stack, Tohoku University Cultural Properties Store) |
|---|---|
| Location | 2-1-1 Katahira, Aoba Ward, Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structures); registration number 04-141; criterion: a model of design |
| Year Designated | Registered 27 October 2017 (88th round) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Brick, three storeys; tiled hipped roof; floor area 83 sq m; built 1910, repaired 2012 |
| Owner | Tohoku University |
| Public Access | Interior closed (in use as a store). Exterior viewable on the Katahira campus, no fee |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00011846
- Tohoku University Campus Guide, Registered Tangible Cultural Properties
- https://campus.bureau.tohoku.ac.jp/campusguide/bunkazai/bunkazai_04.html
- Tohoku University
- https://www.tohoku.ac.jp/japanese/
- Miyagi Prefecture, Cultural Properties Division
- https://www.pref.miyagi.jp/soshiki/bunkazai/
Last verified: 2026.08.07