The Last Building of a Vanished Faculty
In 1922, Tohoku Imperial University in Sendai opened a Faculty of Law and Letters, the first faculty of its kind at a Japanese imperial university to combine law, letters, and economics under one roof. The faculty produced an unusually free intellectual culture for its time, yet almost nothing of its physical home survives. The single exception is a modest three-story reinforced concrete building completed in 1927, known as the Former Second Research Building of the Faculty of Law and Letters. It was registered as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2021.
The building's survival was a matter of luck. During the air raids that burned much of central Sendai in July 1945, fire reached the third floor and destroyed several research rooms, but the structure escaped total loss. A wooden research annex added on the rooftop after the war was later removed, returning the silhouette to something close to its original form.
A Small Building with a Carefully Composed Face
What earned the building its registration under the criterion of serving as a model of design is the treatment of its south facade. The center of the front projects forward to form the entrance bay, crowned by a gabled pediment at the top. Within this bay, arched windows and rectangular windows stack vertically, and the wall between them is faced with brick tiles laid in a yahazu pattern, a herringbone-like arrangement named after the notched end of an arrow.
The flanking walls are plainer, finished with sprayed mortar and punctuated by paired rectangular windows, which makes the ornamented center read all the more clearly. Brick trim outlines the window frames as a further accent. The official description calls the result an endearing school building, and the word fits: this is not monumental architecture but a composition of small, precise gestures. The building area is just 374 square meters, and the interior follows a center-corridor plan with rooms on both sides.
A renovation in 2004 adapted the building for its current role as the research building of the Tohoku University Accounting School, so the interior remains a working academic space.
Seeing It on a Katahira Campus Walk
Katahira Campus, the founding site of Tohoku Imperial University, keeps its grounds open to the public, and the Second Research Building stands within easy reach of the other twelve registered properties on campus. Because it functions as offices and research rooms for the Accounting School, the interior is not open for tours; the pleasure here lies in reading the facade from the outside.
Stand back far enough to take in the whole south front and the logic becomes visible: plain wings, a decorated center, a gable to finish the vertical climb of arch and rectangle. Then compare it with the Romanesque arches of the former library reading room a few minutes away, or the vertical piers of the former chemistry building. Three buildings from the same decade, three different answers to the question of how a university should look.
The campus is about a ten-minute walk from Aoba-dori Ichibancho Station or Itsutsubashi Station on the Sendai subway.
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Q&A
- Can I go inside the building?
- No. The building is in active use as the research building of the Tohoku University Accounting School and is not open for interior tours. The exterior can be viewed freely, as Katahira Campus is open to the public.
- Why is this building historically significant?
- It is the only surviving school building of the Faculty of Law and Letters of Tohoku Imperial University, established in 1922 as Japan's first imperial-university faculty combining law, letters, and economics.
- What is the yahazu brick pattern?
- Yahazu refers to the notched end of an arrow, and the term describes brick tiles laid diagonally in a herringbone-like arrangement. On this building, the pattern fills the wall panels between the stacked windows of the central entrance bay.
- Was the building damaged in World War II?
- Yes. Air raids in 1945 burned several research rooms on the third floor, but the building avoided complete destruction and continued in use after the war.
Basic Information
| Name | Former Second Research Building, Faculty of Law and Letters, Tohoku Imperial University |
|---|---|
| Location | 2-1-1 Katahira, Aoba Ward, Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture |
| Designation | National Registered Tangible Cultural Property (registered October 14, 2021; registration no. 04-0200) |
| Registration Criterion | Serving as a model of design |
| Structure | Reinforced concrete, three stories; building area 374 square meters |
| Year Built | 1927 (Showa 2); renovated 2004 |
| Owner | Tohoku University (National University Corporation) |
| Visiting | Exterior only; the interior is in use by the Accounting School and not open to the public |
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs, National Cultural Properties Database — Former Second Research Building, Faculty of Law and Letters
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00013912
- Tohoku University — Registered Tangible Cultural Properties
- https://www.bureau.tohoku.ac.jp/somu/bunkazai/kenzobutsu/
- Tohoku University — Katahira Campus
- https://www.tohoku.ac.jp/japanese/profile/campus/01/katahira/
Last verified: 2026.07.02