A Schoolhouse of 1933, Still Full of Children
The Igusa Kindergarten Building (井草幼稚園園舎, Igusa Yōchien Ensha) is a timber schoolhouse completed in 1933 in Zenpukuji 1-chome, Suginami Ward, Tokyo, and it was entered on the national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 27 October 2017. It is still in daily use as a kindergarten.
The story behind it begins with a disaster. The Great Kantō Earthquake of 1 September 1923 left something over a hundred thousand people dead and a great many children without parents. The Jōdo (Pure Land) school of Buddhism set up Koishikawa Gakuen the following year to shelter and educate some of them, and a priest named Suzuki Shakuzen helped establish it and became its superintendent. He later became the first director of Denzūkaikan, the Buddhist centre attached to Denzūin temple in Koishikawa, and in 1933, with backing from a good many supporters, he founded this kindergarten. He died the year after it opened.
According to the kindergarten's own account, the building was designed by Mori Hisakichi, an engineer in the Takumiryō, the construction bureau of the Imperial Household Ministry. Mori had designed Koishikawa Gakuen and had worked alongside Suzuki for years in Sunday school and outreach work; the two were friends before they were client and architect. After Suzuki's death Mori kept designing every subsequent building on the site, and he came back each year for the graduation ceremony well into the 1980s, sometimes bringing picture-story shows for the children.
What the Registration Recognises
The Agency for Cultural Affairs recorded one criterion for this building: that it contributes to the historic landscape of the country. Note the category carefully. This is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (登録有形文化財), not an Important Cultural Property. Registration was introduced by the 1996 amendment to the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties and works through notification and guidance rather than a permit system, which is what allows a building like this to remain a functioning school.
The Agency's description picks out the plan first. The building is L-shaped, organised around a central assembly hall with the living quarters set toward the north. Its roof frame is a king post truss, a Western carpentry form in which a vertical post drops from the ridge to the middle of a tie beam and struts run out from it. The observation the Agency then makes is the interesting one: although the founder was a Buddhist priest, the building shows almost nothing of temple architecture, and the exterior reads as ordinary Japanese domestic work. A kindergarten founded by a monk that declines to look like a temple was a deliberate choice, and it is the reason the building sits so comfortably in a residential street.
The official record gives 324 square metres of building area, single storey with a partial second storey, roofed in tile and sheet metal. It also notes alterations and additions in 1952 and 1962, so the fabric is not a frozen 1933 object.
Getting onto the register took ten years. In January 2007 two specialists from the Suginami Tatemono Ōendan, a volunteer group of architects and planners surveying the ward's historic buildings, came to look at the schoolhouse under a Suginami Ward survey of buildings that carry the district's older character, and put it on the ward's list of candidates for preservation. Serious documentation began in 2015. In February 2016 two architects crawled into the roof space above the hall and found the munafuda, the ridge tag recording the building's construction, inscribed by Kimura Genshun, the seventy-first abbot of Denzūin. Officials from the Agency inspected the site that December, and registration followed in October 2017. The kindergarten notes that the unusually complete survival of its original drawings and construction papers counted heavily in the assessment. A bronze plaque was unveiled in May 2018 and set into the brick gatepost the following month.
Visiting Zenpukuji
This one requires a clear statement up front: the Igusa Kindergarten is a working school for small children and it is not a sightseeing destination. There is no admission, no opening hours for visitors and no casual access to the grounds. The building has occasionally been shown at open days organised by the kindergarten, and anyone with a serious reason to see it should contact the school in advance rather than turning up. Photography of children is out of the question, and the sensible approach is a look at the gate and the plaque from the public road, then a walk on.
The setting rewards that walk. The kindergarten stands on a slight rise, and on clear winter days Mount Fuji lines up straight ahead of the gate. Immediately nearby is Igusa Hachimangū, a large and old shrine whose wooded precinct is one of the deepest patches of green in Suginami and which is open to anyone. Zenpukuji Park, with its two spring-fed ponds, is a further ten minutes northwest. The nearest station is Nishi-Ogikubo on the JR Chūō Line, roughly eighteen minutes on foot, and buses run from Ogikubo and Nishi-Ogikubo toward the shrine.
Two small notes for anyone checking records. The address in the national database, 155-2 and adjoining lots in Zenpukuji 1-chome, is the land registry number; the kindergarten's postal address is 1-17-1 Zenpukuji. And the registration does not cover the whole site. The southern annex, a later structure, sits outside the registered extent, so the protected building is the 1933 schoolhouse and its early additions rather than everything you can see from the road.
The kindergarten also records a large seismic strengthening campaign in the Heisei years, during which the roof was recovered with very light metal tiles by a firm specialising in temple and shrine roofing. That is the sort of intervention the registration system is designed to permit: a building kept upright, kept insured against earthquakes, and kept doing the job it was built for, which in this case is being full of four-year-olds every weekday morning.
- 📍 Plan Your Visit to Tokyo
- Find tours, activities & transport passes near Igusa Kindergarten Building
- [ Tokyo Skytree Asakusa & teamLab Experiences ]
Q&A
- Can the Igusa Kindergarten Building be visited by the public?
- Not on a walk-in basis. It is an operating kindergarten with no visitor hours and no admission. The school has held occasional open days, so anyone with a genuine reason to see the building should contact the kindergarten in advance. Please do not enter the grounds or photograph children.
- Where is the Igusa Kindergarten Building and how do I get there?
- It is in Zenpukuji 1-chome, Suginami Ward, Tokyo, next to Igusa Hachimangū shrine. Nishi-Ogikubo Station on the JR Chūō Line is about eighteen minutes away on foot, and buses run from Ogikubo and Nishi-Ogikubo stations toward the shrine.
- Why was the Igusa Kindergarten Building registered as a cultural property?
- The Agency for Cultural Affairs registered it on the ground that it contributes to the historic landscape of the country. Its L-shaped plan around a central hall, its king post truss roof frame and its restrained Japanese exterior make it a rare survival of a prewar kindergarten still serving its original purpose.
- Who founded the Igusa Kindergarten and who designed its building?
- Suzuki Shakuzen, a Jōdo school priest who had helped run an orphanage for children left parentless by the 1923 earthquake, founded the kindergarten in 1933. The kindergarten records the architect as Mori Hisakichi, an engineer of the Imperial Household Ministry's construction bureau and a long-standing friend of the founder.
- Is the Igusa Kindergarten Building an Important Cultural Property?
- No. It is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, a lighter category introduced in 1996 that operates by notification and advice. Important Cultural Properties and National Treasures are designated under a permit system and form a far smaller and more strictly controlled group.
Basic Information
| Name | Igusa Kindergarten Building (井草幼稚園園舎, Igusa Yōchien Ensha) |
|---|---|
| Location | 155-2 and adjoining lots, Zenpukuji 1-chome, Suginami Ward, Tokyo (postal address of the kindergarten: 1-17-1 Zenpukuji) |
| Designation | Registered Tangible Cultural Property (Structures), registration no. 13-392, eighty-eighth round of registrations |
| Year Designated | Registered 27 October 2017 (Heisei 29) |
| Quantity | 1 building |
| Dimensions | Building area 324 m²; timber, single storey with a partial second storey; tile and sheet-metal roofing; built 1933 (Shōwa 8), with alterations and additions in 1952 and 1962 |
| Owner | No owner name recorded in the Agency for Cultural Affairs database; the kindergarten is run by the educational corporation Shōhō Gakuen |
| Public Access | Not open to the public. Operating kindergarten; occasional open days only, by prior arrangement with the school |
References
- National Cultural Properties Database, Agency for Cultural Affairs: Igusa Yochien Ensha
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/heritage/detail/101/00011895
- Cultural Heritage Online: Igusa Yochien Ensha
- https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/294800
- Igusa Kindergarten official site: the registered schoolhouse
- https://www.igusa-y.jp/yukeibunkazai
- Suginami Gaku Club, Suginami Ward official information site: Igusa Kindergarten schoolhouse
- https://www.suginamigaku.org/2025/03/igusayochien.html
- Agency for Cultural Affairs: Registered Tangible Cultural Properties (Structures)
- https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkazai/shokai/yukei_kenzobutsu/toroku_yukei.html
Last verified: 2026.08.22