Japan Baptist Christian Mejirogaoka Church Chapel

About Japan Baptist Christian Mejirogaoka Church Chapel

Japan Baptist Christian Mejirogaoka Church Chapel (日本バプテストキリスト教目白ヶ丘教会礼拝堂, Mejirogaoka Kyōkai Reihaidō) is a reinforced concrete Baptist chapel in Shimo-Ochiai, Shinjuku City, Tokyo, built in 1950 to a design by the architect Endo Arata and registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2011. It occupies a corner lot in the residential streets south of Mejiro Station.

The congregation was founded in 1911 as Koishikawa Baptist Church. During the war it moved to its present site and became Mejirogaoka Church; the church's own pages also write the name with a full-size ケ (目白ケ丘), while the Agency for Cultural Affairs uses the small ヶ. A kindergarten opened alongside it in 1951.

The Agency records the chapel as reinforced concrete, single storey, with a steel sheet roof and a building area of 299 square meters. It is a gabled block with its ridge running north to south. The registered lot is 2-416-3 Shimo-Ochiai and adjoining lots; the church's postal address is 2-15-11 Shimo-Ochiai.

Endo Arata's Arched Interior

Japan Baptist Christian Mejirogaoka Church Chapel was registered on October 28, 2011, as number 13-0283, under the criterion of buildings that have become a model of design. The Agency's description singles out the interior: large arches running along the length of the hall divide it into a distinctive space, which the description calls serene.

Endo Arata (遠藤新, 1889 to 1951) is best known as Frank Lloyd Wright's chief Japanese assistant on the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. The church presents its chapel as Endo's work in the Wright manner. A 2020 field report by a student of Kyoto University of the Arts, based on interviews at the church and on a biography of Endo, records that construction was completed in September 1950 with Kajima Construction, and explains the arches through Endo's own reasoning.

According to that report, Endo saw tall church halls as a set of problems: heavy buttresses, bulk out of scale with the houses around them, glare from high windows and echo in the upper corners. His answer was 2 great arched beams that split the hall into a high central part and lower sides. The beams carry the roof, so the outer columns can stay slender and the walls can take many low windows. Endo is said to have likened the beams to the ribs of an animal and the chapel itself to a tiger.

The chapel was one of his last works. Endo died in June 1951, the year after it was finished, and the report notes that his funeral was the first held in the new chapel.

What to Look For at Mejirogaoka Church

From the street, look for the bell tower. The Agency places it at the north end of the east side: a slim white shaft opened at the top by a pointed arch with the bell hanging inside, and a cross above. Beside it, the gable wall carries a large round window divided by a cross, and a band of square windows runs below. The long side walls are lined with tall, narrow windows, which the Agency mentions as a defining feature.

Inside, the arches are the whole story. In the Agency's photograph of the interior, the 2 longitudinal arches show as broad white curves sweeping down on either side, and the high central part of the hall closes in a tall pointed arch around the communion table. Behind it, a tall wooden door with a pointed head sits in a wall paneled in dark wood to waist height, and a small round window with a cross is set high in the gable. Everything above the paneling is plain white.

The student report also records changes over the years, based on a church volunteer's account: a leaking ceiling was rebuilt in reinforced concrete, the slate roof was replaced with metal sheet, and wooden window frames gave way to aluminum, all while keeping the original design. The pews are said to be the original ones.

Visiting Japan Baptist Christian Mejirogaoka Church Chapel

Japan Baptist Christian Mejirogaoka Church Chapel is in weekly use and has no sightseeing hours or admission fee. The bell tower and gable can be seen from the street at any time.

Sunday worship runs from 11:00 a.m. to 11:45 a.m., after Sunday school at 10:00 a.m. A Bible study and prayer meeting is held on Wednesdays at 10:30 a.m. The church notes that many people who are not Christians attend its services, so joining Sunday worship is the natural way to see the chapel from inside. For other visits, call the church beforehand.

The church does not publish a photography policy. Photograph the exterior from the road, and ask before taking pictures inside; do not photograph during worship.

From the single ticket gate at Mejiro Station on the JR Yamanote Line, the church's directions are to turn left along Mejiro-dori for 200 meters, turn left at the Mejiro 3-chome lights and continue 200 meters; the church appears on the right, about 8 minutes in all. Takadanobaba Station is about 10 minutes away on foot.