午夜剧场

Image: The 6th Boathouse (Completion ceremony in 1973)

The 午夜剧场 Athletic Association Rowing Club was founded in 1889 and marks its 133rd year this year. During this time, it has achieved numerous Olympic appearances and All-Japan Championship victories, and supporting these activities are the "boathouse" and "training camp dormitory." Currently, the boathouse storing the racing shells houses dozens of boats, including imported eights costing 10 million yen. The first Juku boathouse was the Shibaura Boathouse built in 1898, and the second and third boathouses were built on the Sumida River, which was the mecca of rowing at the time. In 1940, following the relocation of the Preparatory Course to Hiyoshi, the fourth boathouse, the Tamagawa Boathouse, was built through the Tamagawa embankment but was destroyed by air raids in 1944. Meanwhile, when the Toda Boat Course was completed in 1940 as the world's first artificial rowing course for the "1940 Tokyo Olympics," the Juku acquired 2,380 square meters of land at the Toda course in the same year.

After the destruction of the Tamagawa Boathouse, the club continued its activities on the Sumida River by borrowing boats and oars from other universities, but plans were made to build a boathouse in Toda. In 1949, the elegant two-story wooden 5th-generation dormitory and boathouse were completed. It was a work by Yoshiro Taniguchi, who designed the Togu Imperial Palace and the Yochisha Elementary School Main Building.

Rowing is the ultimate team sport, and to foster perfect uniformity, it is essential to have an attached dormitory for long-term training camps. This 5th-generation boathouse and dormitory built the golden age of the Juku Rowing Club, but the boat storage capacity was only about 10 boats, and the dormitory space was about the size of a single-family house, accommodating around 20 people. It was a dense living environment with no air conditioning, heating, or showers, and only one tatami mat's worth of space per person. Drafts came through the windows of the wooden building, snow would pile up on the futons on winter mornings, and mushrooms would grow on the tatami mats during the rainy season. Due to such aging, the 6th-generation boathouse, a two-story reinforced concrete structure, was completed in 1973.

However, this boathouse also had structural issues regarding the athletes' conditioning, such as temperatures reaching 40°C in midsummer. In 1989, marking the "Rowing Club Centenary," a plan to build a new boathouse was made as a commemorative project and a fundraising campaign was conducted. After spending sufficient time on the design to prioritize boat storage capacity and the comfort of dormitory life, the 7th-generation boathouse, a well-equipped structure capable of being used for over 50 years, was completed in 1993. The current boathouse is a steel structure with the boathouse on the first floor and the dormitory space on the second floor. It has three times the boat storage capacity of previous facilities and can accommodate over 80 people in the dormitory. It is fully air-conditioned and equipped with an indoor training room, large bunk beds, a large self-catering kitchen, and a large public bath with hot showers.

Compared to the previous boathouses, a truly luxurious and comfortable boathouse has been completed, and the club members use it with great care. Nearly 30 years have passed since its completion, but I am confident that the members will continue to use it for another 50 years. In the Toda Boathouse, completed through the donations and cooperation of the Juku and its alumni, I believe the members will firmly acquire the qualities of a "source of honorable character" and "a paragon of intellect and morals for the entire nation," growing into fine individuals who contribute to society.

(Eisuke Hiraoka, Chairman of the Mita Rowing Club)