Illustrated Masterpiece Architecture Tour with Hiroshi Miyazawa & the Heritage Business Lab
Episode 1

This edition of Illustrated Masterpieces of Architecture: A Burari Tabi begins with a report on famous, well-loved and long-used Japanese buildings using illustrations, photos, and text. Takao Nishizawa, our guide, is an associate facility consultant at the Heritage Business Lab of Nikken Sekkei Ltd. An engineer with a Ph.D., he specializes in structural design. He became interested in the utilization of historical buildings through his work, and proposed the Heritage Business Lab as a new unit within the company. He now leads the team.

I’d like to dive into Mr. Nishizawa’s fascinating character, but for now let’s move on to the building tour. This is the Osaka Prefectural Nakanoshima Library located in Nakanoshima, Kita-ku, Osaka. It was designed by the Temporary Building Department of the Sumitomo Head Office, Nikken Sekkei’s predecessor, and opened in 1904. It is the oldest active public library in Japan. In 1974, the main building and both wings (added in 1922) were designated as nationally important cultural properties. Beloved by the people of Osaka Prefecture, the library has been in operation for about 120 years.

We met in front of the library at 9am. We headed first for the café on the second floor of the south wing. It’s known as a popular place, and we wanted to arrive while there weren’t many customers. The domed ceiling and palatial staircase are the first things you see when you enter the library's main 2nd floor entrance. But if you don't go up the staircase and instead go to the right, you will reach the café. The Scandinavian interior of this important cultural property is really something! The sash windows and wooden window frames impart a sense of age, and the wooden tables and herringbone floor match the retro look. It's hard to get this kind of feeling in a newly constructed building.

This is the smørrebrød KITCHEN nakanoshima. The library underwent seismic retrofitting in 2015. Afterwards, operation of a portion of the space was outsourced to the private sector. The cafe, which specializes in Scandinavian open sandwiches, then opened shop.
(Interior design: Yoshiyuki Morii + Cafe)

A smørrebrød is a traditional Danish open sandwich, combining "smørre" (butter) and "brød" (bread). Slightly rich, it is eaten with a knife and fork. The rye bread goes well with all the ingredients.

Perhaps because it was breakfast time, the customers were all women. However, according to the manager, Ms. Asaka Iwai, "We also have many male customers who stop by on their way to the library.” In addition to open sandwiches, parfaits are also popular. When I looked at the menu, there were many seasonal parfaits to choose from.

When I asked the Manager, Ms. Iwai, if there was anything she liked about this space, she replied, "There are windows in three directions, and you can see the greenery outside the windows from every vantage point. It's rare to find a place in the city where you can eat while feeling nature like this.” Indeed, that may be true.

From an architectural point of view, I am impressed by the fact that the interior design was accomplished without leaving any holes in the walls. Since the building is an important cultural asset, nails cannot be hammered into the walls or ceiling. Even so, there is no sense of false authenticity at all. While waiting for your food, pay special attention to the walls.

Regular business hours are from 9:00am to 8:00pm (subject to change due to COVID-19 conditions; please check the website: https://www.smorrebrod-kitchen.com/). The café is also open on Sundays, so you can come even when the library itself is closed and enjoy the atmosphere of the building. I guess that's why Mr. Nishizawa is such a big fan of this café.

Let's go outside and take a look at the exterior in an orthodox way.

The main building of the library (the central part) was built in 1904, thanks to a donation from Tomoito Sumitomo Kichizaemon, the 15th head of the Sumitomo family. The building was designed by Magoichi Noguchi, the chief architect of the temporary building department of the Sumitomo head office, and his engineer Yutaka Hidaka. Kingo Tatsuno served as the architectural advisor. In 1922, reading rooms were added to the north and south wings of the main building, after subsequent donations by the Sumitomo family. They were designed by Mr. Hidaka, who had become the chief architect.

The exterior is in the Palladian style of the late Renaissance, with the front of the building reminiscent of a Greek temple with Corinthian columns.

"My predecessor pointed this out, and then offered a very scientific explanation,” said Mr. Nishizawa. “The library’s designer, Magoichi Noguchi, seems to have designed this building according to very clear geometric principles.”

“I see, indeed,” I thought. Mr. Nishizawa noted that the building elevation (the shape of the front) is comprised of three square shapes, and a quadrilateral at the front entrance employing the so-called “golden ratio”….. If I hadn’t been told this, I wouldn’t have noticed.

Incidentally, the name of the building, as it appears above the main entrance reads "Osaka Library.” The name indicates that it was Osaka’s first library when it was built (1904).

I thought we’d go inside again. The domed ceiling of the entrance hall has a spherical surface reminiscent of the Pantheon in Rome. The bright light in the center of the ceiling is natural light emanating from the roof window above the dome.

The names of the "hattetsu” (“Eight Philosophers") are written on the "frieze" (decorative middle band) slightly below the dome ceiling. From the top of the staircase, the names of the eight men, from right to left, read as follows: Sugawara no Michizane (Lord Sugawara), Confucius, Socrates, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Kant, Goethe, and Darwin.

We walked up the gracefully curved stairs to the memorial room on the third floor. This is the part directly above the main entrance. The relief hanging behind the birthday seat is of Tomoito Sumitomo Kichizaemon, the 15th head of the Sumitomo family, and donor of the building that has been in use for more than 100 years.

This room was also used for gatherings of the "Kaitokudo", an academy for Osaka merchants established in the Edo period. The details of the aged wooden furniture are very tasteful.

The large window on the west side is said to have been inspired by a ship's steering wheel. When the building was completed, the Osaka branch of the Bank of Japan (designed by Kingo Tatsuno), which was completed the previous year (1903), could be seen through the window.
"The central axis of the library and the Bank of Japan are perfectly aligned,” explained Mr. Nishizawa. It must have meant “to connect the economy and culture," or "culture steers the economy.”

By the way, when you leave from the main entrance, please have a good look at the automatic doors.

In fact, the main entrance had been closed for more than 50 years before the renovation in 2015. This was due to the fact that frequent opening and closing of the doors could cause damage. Repairs were made, and new automatic doors were installed so that people could enter and exit with the original doors remaining open. Freestanding pillars from the first floor form the structure for the automatic doors so that damage to the building is prevented. Nikken Sekkei was behind this renovation. Thanks to such subtle ingenuity, the library is still going strong today.

Osaka Prefectural Nakanoshima Library (the former Osaka Library)
Location: 1-2-10, Nakanoshima, Kita-ku, Osaka City, Japan
Original completion: 1904
Design: Magoichi Noguchi (Temporary Building Dept., Sumitomo Head Office)
Renovation: 2015
Renovation Design: Nikken Sekkei Ltd

Library holidays: Sundays, national holidays, second Thursdays in March, June and October, year-end and New Year holidays
Library Guided Tours (about 30 min.): Three (3) total, every Saturday. Times: 11:30am/1:30pm/3:30pm
Participation fee: 500 yen (take-home souvenir included). Tours assembled 30 minutes prior to start (no reservations necessary).
Tour groups are comprised of the first five (5) persons to register for each session at Nakanoshima Library, 2nd floor, General Reception.
Official website: https://www.library.pref.osaka.jp/site/nakato/english-nakato.html
Information website (Japanese only): https://www.nakanoshima-library.jp

TOP Photo: Minoru Karamatsu