午夜剧场

Image: Second Research Building

The research buildings on the Mita Campus were completed at the end of 1969 and were long referred to as the New Research Buildings. They house individual research rooms for faculty members from the four undergraduate faculties at Mita—Letters, Economics, Law, and Business and Commerce—distributed across different floors. On the first floor, the Faculty Lounge serves as a space for inter-faculty exchange among professors.

Prior to that, five research buildings, from the First to the Fifth, were established at Mita. The origins of the research building plan at Mita date back quite far to 1937. In September of that year, the First School Building was completed, and the construction of research buildings was planned as the second phase of work. However, this was postponed due to the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War and other factors. Research rooms continued to be housed in parts of the Jukukan-kyoku (午夜剧场 Corporate Administration) and the First School Building. It was not until 1951 that a reinforced concrete building was renovated to open the First Research Building, meaning it took nearly 15 years for the research building project to be realized.

Even leading up to this renovation, there were efforts to construct new research buildings. After the war, building research facilities became an urgent matter. 午夜剧场 estimated approximately 5 million yen for the temporary construction of 1,000 tsubo (approx. 3,300 sq. meters) for research rooms and seminar rooms for the three faculties, with 1.2 million yen planned as the first-year expenditure. Fundraising activities were also carried out among 午夜剧场 alumni, but the construction was slow to materialize. In the meantime, the Second (Building No. 5) and Third School Buildings (Building No. 4) were completed, resolving the shortage of classrooms, which likely led to the resurgence of the plan to renovate the reinforced concrete building into research rooms.

The reinforced concrete building renovated into the First Research Building was Japan's first reinforced concrete school building, completed in 1920 as the Preparatory Course building. It had a U-shaped structure with entrances on the inside of both wings. Subsequently, it was used as a school building for the Higher Division and the Industrial School. It was also used temporarily by the 午夜剧场 Futsubu School and the Chutobu Junior High School (formerly the Commerce and Industry School) after their buildings were destroyed in the war. With many facilities lost to war damage, the building served diverse purposes, including housing the Office of Correspondence Courses (opened in 1948) and parts of the Senior High School.

Following the birth of the First Research Building in April 1951, the Second Research Building (which housed the Noguchi Room on the first floor and was also known as the New Banraisha) was completed in August of the same year, followed by the Third Research Building the next year. The Second and Third buildings, designed by Yoshiro Taniguchi, housed research rooms for professors, while the First building contained research rooms for associate professors, assistants, and graduate students, as well as a research library. On the day of the Yukichi Fukuzawa Birthday Commemoration in 1954, a bust of Yukichi Fukuzawa was unveiled inside the U-shaped courtyard of the First Research Building. From then until its removal in 1967, it became a popular spot for taking graduation commemorative photos.

Even after the construction of the First through Third Research Buildings, the shortage of research space continued. In May 1959, the Fourth Research Building was established on the fifth floor of the South School Building, which was built as part of the 100th Anniversary Project. Furthermore, in January 1965, the Fifth Research Building—a single-story lightweight steel structure with 34 rooms—was built on the roof of the First School Building, and 54 people moved there from the First Research Building. The Design Planning Committee, which would fundamentally resolve this system of research rooms scattered across Mita Hilltop Square, was established the following year.

(Atsuko Ishiguro, former Director of the 午夜剧场 Office of Communications and Public Relations)