The Building on the Other Side of the Avenue
The East Main Building of Hitotsubashi University (一橋大学東本館, also written Hitotsubashi Daigaku Higashi Honkan) is a reinforced concrete structure in Naka, Kunitachi City, Tokyo, completed in November 1929 and entered on the national Register of Tangible Cultural Properties on 26 September 2000.
Most visitors who come to Kunitachi looking for architecture head for the West Campus and the auditorium there. The East Main Building sits on the opposite side of Daigaku-dōri, the avenue that runs south from the station, and it is the first of the three registered buildings anyone walking down from Kunitachi Station actually reaches. It is also the largest of them, with a building area of 1,711 square metres against the auditorium's 1,471.
It was built as the main building of the Commerce Specialist Division of Tokyo University of Commerce, the vocational stream that ran alongside the degree course. The university had come out to Kunitachi in stages between 1927 and 1930, after the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923 made its Kanda Hitotsubashi campus unusable, and the East Main Building belongs to the middle of that migration.
A Planned Town and Its Institutional Core
The Agency for Cultural Affairs record frames this building within a larger story: Kunitachi was conceived as an academic garden town by the developer Tsutsumi Yasujirō, and the university was to be its institutional core. The town came first as a plan, the university was recruited into it, and the street grid was drawn around that arrangement.
Anyone who walks down Daigaku-dōri can still read the intention. The avenue leaves the station and runs dead straight, unusually wide, planted along both sides, and it terminates on the campus. Very little of interwar Japanese suburban planning survives in a form this legible. The registered buildings are pieces of that scheme rather than isolated monuments.
Registration was granted under the criterion of being a model of design, with register number 13-0094, in the twenty-fifth round of registration; the gazette notice is dated 11 October 2000. All three Hitotsubashi buildings were registered together on the same day, which reflects how the Agency understood them: as a group whose value is partly collective.
Design Without a Signature
The Agency attributes the design to the Architectural Section of the Ministry of Education. No individual name is attached, and that absence tells you something about how public building worked in 1920s Japan. Ministries kept in-house design offices staffed by graduates of the imperial university architecture programmes, and those offices produced a very large share of the schools, laboratories and administrative buildings of the period without any of it entering the canon of named works. Some secondary accounts credit the building to Itō Chūta, or to architects trained under him working within the ministry office; the Agency's record names only the ministry section, and that is the attribution to rely on.
The design decision that matters most is the plan. The building is laid out as a closed rectangle around a central courtyard, described in Japanese as a ro-shaped plan (ロ字形) after the katakana character whose form is a square with a hollow centre. Corridors run around the inside face; classrooms and offices occupy the perimeter. In a two-storey building of this footprint, the courtyard is what makes the deep plan habitable, delivering daylight and cross ventilation to rooms that would otherwise face only outward.
The elevation is symmetrical about the centre. Horizontal lines are emphasised deliberately through a projecting eaves cornice and a string course running across the façade at floor level, which pull the eye sideways and keep a long two-storey block from reading as a flat slab. The Romanesque vocabulary of the auditorium is present here as well, in the round-arched openings and the scratch tile facing, but handled with more restraint. This is a building that echoes its famous neighbour rather than competing with it.
Stand back on Daigaku-dōri and the relationship between the two becomes visible. The auditorium is an object designed to be looked at. The East Main Building is a working block that borrowed the same clothes.
Practical Notes for a Visit
The East Main Building remains in university use, and its interior is closed to people unaffiliated with the institution as a general rule. Non-affiliates may enter the campus grounds after checking in at the guardhouse, and exterior photography from the grounds is not restricted. Campus access can be suspended during entrance examination periods, which fall in late February.
From Kunitachi Station on the JR Chūō Line, take the south exit and walk about ten minutes down Daigaku-dōri; the East Campus is on the left before the avenue reaches the West Campus. From Yaho Station on the JR Nambu Line it is about twenty minutes on foot from the north exit, or roughly six minutes by bus toward Kunitachi Station, alighting at the Hitotsubashi Daigaku stop.
Allow time for the walk itself. The three registered buildings can be seen in one loop of about an hour, taking the East Main Building first, crossing Daigaku-dōri to the West Campus for the Former Gatehouse on the central green strip, and finishing at the auditorium. Late March and early April, when the cherries along the avenue are out, is the season most photographers choose.
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Q&A
- Can visitors go inside the East Main Building of Hitotsubashi University?
- No. The building remains in university use and its interior is closed to non-affiliates as a rule. The exterior can be viewed from the campus grounds, which non-affiliates may enter after checking in at the guardhouse.
- Who designed the East Main Building of Hitotsubashi University?
- The Agency for Cultural Affairs attributes the design to the Architectural Section of the Ministry of Education, without naming an individual architect. Some secondary sources connect the work to Itō Chūta or to architects trained under him, but the Agency's record does not support a personal attribution.
- What was the East Main Building of Hitotsubashi University originally used for?
- It was built in November 1929 as the main building of the Commerce Specialist Division of Tokyo University of Commerce, the predecessor institution, on the East Campus site across Daigaku-dōri from the main grounds.
- How does the East Main Building of Hitotsubashi University differ from Kanematsu Auditorium?
- Both are reinforced concrete and both use a Romanesque idiom, but the auditorium was designed by Itō Chūta as a ceremonial hall, while the East Main Building is a working academic block laid out around a central courtyard with a symmetrical, horizontally banded front. It is also slightly larger, at 1,711 square metres.
- When was the East Main Building of Hitotsubashi University registered as a cultural property?
- On 26 September 2000, as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property under register number 13-0094, with the gazette notice following on 11 October. It was registered on the same day as Kanematsu Auditorium and the Former Gatehouse.
Basic Information
| Name | East Main Building, Hitotsubashi University (一橋大学東本館) |
|---|---|
| Location | 2-1 Naka, Kunitachi City, Tokyo |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structure); register no. 13-0094 |
| Year Designated | Registered 26 September 2000; gazetted 11 October 2000 |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Reinforced concrete, two storeys; building area 1,711 m2 |
| Owner | Hitotsubashi University |
| Public Access | Exterior viewable from campus grounds after checking in at the guardhouse; interior closed to non-affiliates. Campus access may be suspended during entrance examinations. |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs: East Main Building, Hitotsubashi University
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00001767
- Cultural Heritage Online: East Main Building, Hitotsubashi University
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/114847
- Kunitachi City: Nationally Registered Cultural Properties (4)
- https://www.city.kunitachi.tokyo.jp/soshiki/Dept08/Div03/Sec01/gyomu/0061/0062/0067/1463551201705.html
- Hitotsubashi University: Kunitachi Campus Access
- https://www.hit-u.ac.jp/guide/campus/kunitachi.html
- Hitotsubashi University: Facilities Guide
- https://www.hit-u.ac.jp/guide/other/facility.html
Last verified: 2026.08.04