Modernism-Hizuchi

8
Hizuchi Elementary School
and Modernism at risk
Henry Tzu Ng, Executive Vice President, World Monuments Fund
W
hen Hizuchi Elementary School was built in 1958, the architectural community of
Japan was deeply impressed by the fine, modern functionalist design but surprised
by its location—a rural farming community on Shikoku Island. At the time of its construction,
Hizuchi incorporated the most advanced school architecture design in the country and
reflected emerging ideas about the application of modern architecture in post-war Japan.
Hizuchi also took the local community by surprise when it was first designed. Many parents of
the school’s children were puzzled by its radical design—the lack of symmetry, the absence of a
distinctive main entrance, and the bright palette of pinks, greens, and yellows rather than the more
traditional muted greys and whites. Eventually, however, they were won over by Hizuchi’s architect,
Matsumura, and this unusual wood-frame-and-steel hybrid building would ultimately be constructed
with the help of some of these same parents, who used cattle to transport the lumber from
nearby forests to the building site along the Kikigawa River.
How did this remote, tangerine-farming community deep in the canyons of Shikoku Island come
to build a municipal school with such strong modernist convictions? Further, how does a building
with such a storied and celebrated beginning wind up being threatened with possible demolition
some 50 years later, and then rescued?
Architectural Institute of Japan Shikoku Chapter