PS20

The Libraries Of Keio University In Tokyo And Yokohama 

Futoshi Ogo
"Independent Scholar", Okayama, Japan

To celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the establishment of Keio University (1858- ) on the Mita campus in Tokyo, a new library (1908-12) in the Gothic style was designed by Sone Tatsuzō (1853-1937) and Chūjō Seiichirō (1868-1936). Designed by Maki Fumihiko (1928- ), another new library was completed in 1981 on the same campus. Its site was formerly occupied by a makeshift wooden building, constructed in the postwar period.

A buttressed exterior of the library by Sone- Chūjō (old library) is covered with red bricks and light-gray granite. Clad in salmon-pink tiles, an exterior of the library by Maki (new library) is composed of a square module of 8 meters with an increment of two floors. Facing each other, these buildings retain a datum line, which is shared with the administration building (Jukukan-kyoku; 1925-26 by Sone-Chūjō), located between the libraries and equally distanced from each library. Cornice lines of the old library and Jukukan-kyoku run as the datum line (16 meters high), which extends to the fourth-floor- roof level of the new library. Rising from here, a setback of its north façade visually helps assimilate to volumes of the old library and Jukukan-kyoku. A U-shaped square surrounded by these three structures symbolizes the long history of the institution. Due to exiguous area of the campus, upper components of the other three façades of the new library are also set back in order to alleviate crammed space caused by adjacent buildings.

In 1982, Maki renovated the interior of the old library, where enduring sustainability has been embodied with modernity. This paper, thereby, explores architectonic and cultural dialogue between the old and new libraries and analyzes individual development in Maki's subsequent library (1985) on the Hiyoshi campus in Yokohama, constructed to celebrate the 125^th anniversary of the founding of Keio.