Soka City Museum of History and Folklore (former west block of Soka Elementary School)

One School Building, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property since 2008

Soka City Museum of History and Folklore (former west block of Soka Elementary School) (草加市立歴史民俗資料館（旧草加小学校西校舎）) stands at 1-25-1 Sumiyoshi, Soka City, Saitama Prefecture, a Taisho-period building entered on the register of tangible cultural properties on 23 October 2008. It is a registered property rather than a designated one.

The quantity is one building. The owner is Soka City.

The structure is reinforced concrete, two-storeyed, with a floor area of 333 square metres. The date field reads Taisho and the year field 1926, with repairs in 1982.

A Roof Used as a Playground

The top of the building serves in place of the ground.

The Agency records a corridor on the west, stairwells at the north and south ends, 3 classrooms on each floor, and the roof given over to a playground.

Two storeys, 3 classrooms to each: 6 in all, and above them the playground.

At Takegawara Onsen, a great matted room with alcove and shelves occupies the upper floor. That lies under the roof.

At the Old University Bath and the former bank branch at Neu, height is taken within a single storey by opening to the roof.

Here the top of the roof itself is used. The height of the building adds to the ground it offers.

Among the Earliest Concrete Schools in the Prefecture

The assessment turns on being early within a prefecture.

The Agency closes that it is a school building of reinforced concrete from among the earliest in the prefecture.

Among the earliest is not the first: it names a period rather than a place in a sequence. The compass is the prefecture.

At the Yoshibe kiln, the record says the only known example: that nothing else of the kind survives.

At the former Yamanaka main house, it says valuable as farmhouse building surviving within the city: the compass there is a city.

Here the compass is a prefecture, and the ground is earliness in time. As a way of stating value this is the twenty-fourth met.

A Parapet Raised to a Gable at Its Centre

The low wall around the roof stands higher in the middle.

The Agency records the parapet raised to a gable shape at the centre of the front and of the back.

A parapet is the low wall set around a roof. Here it is lifted into a triangle at the middle of each of those faces.

The outer walls, the record adds, are rendered in mortar with the pier shapes showing, and pierced by paired tall windows.

At Sama House, fire walls project above the roof to mark the divisions between dwellings.

Here the raising is ornament. Since the roof serves as a playground, the parapet stands where it is seen from close at hand.

Visiting

The building stands at 1-25-1 Sumiyoshi, Soka City, Saitama Prefecture, owned by the city.

The Agency records it facing west onto the road: two storeys of reinforced concrete.

The corridor runs along the west side, with stairwells at the north and south ends. Circulation is gathered to one side and the two ends.

The brackets in its name give its former use, the west block of an elementary school. It is now a museum of history and folklore.

The city owns this museum, so opening and hours follow the owner's arrangements. Check before travelling.