Kanazawa Municipal Library for Commemorating the Imperial Enthronement
In a recent article, I wrote about the installation of an electric banner on the 33-meter-high fire watchtowers in Kanazawa City on the occasion of the Emperor’s accession to the throne in 1928.
Various municipalities held memorial ceremonies and constructed public buildings to commemorate the accession to the throne.
Kanazawa City built a municipal library on this occasion. (Photo above)
In September 1928, Nakajima Tokutaro (1881-1955), a businessman from Kanazawa, offered to donate 80,000 yen to Kanazawa City for the purchase and construction of the library site.
In making the donation, Nakajima made the following requests
1) The library should have an auditorium along with reading facilities for public use.
2) The stacks should be earthquake-proof, fireproof, and moisture-proof.
3) If the purpose of 1) is changed or the library is to be discontinued in the future, the donor or his heirs should be consulted.
Upon receiving the offer of donation, Kanazawa City convened a city council meeting on September 11, and decided to accept the donation.
The city was able to dispose of the 1,220 m2 site of the former Kanazawa Medical School (on the north side of Kanazawa Castle) from the prefectural government, and a three-story reinforced concrete library was planned there.
The design was commissioned to Kondo Juro of Tokyo. (A name search turned up Kondo Juro (1877-1946), who worked for the Taiwan Governor-General’s Office as an engineer from 1906 and designed schools in Taiwan, Taipei Hospital, etc. He returned to Japan in 1924, so perhaps it is the same person.)
[Addendum] (2025-06-20)
In the “Comprehensive List of Modern Architectures in Japan” (1980), I found that the Kanazawa Municipal Library was designed by Fujisawa Yasutaro. He was an engineer working for Kanazawa City Office. Since I have not yet investigated what actually happened, I cannot say for sure who designed the library at this time.
The library received an offer to donate its collection from the city’s Kuromoto Ueki.
Construction began in April 1929, and the main body of the building was completed in October.
An inauguration ceremony was held on January 25, 1930, then it was marked the anniversary of the museum’s opening.
The building was actually opened on July 10. (Maybe the newspaper reading room was opened to the public earlier than this.)
The capacity was 48 in the children’s reading room, 8 in the special reading room, 18 in the women’s reading room, 62 in the regular reading room, 26 in the newspaper reading rooms, and 268 people in the auditorium.
The auditorium was used for library-sponsored meetings and was also available to the general public for a fee.
In April 1945, the library was closed due to the evacuation of books in preparation for air raids. It was not until January 1946 that the library reopened.
In 1948, the name was changed to “Kanazawa Municipal Library” by removing the words “for Commemorating the Imperial Enthronement”.
Due to the aging and cramped facilities, it was decided to rebuild the library in 1973.
In 1976, the city acquired part of the former site of the Japan Monopoly Corporation factory, which had been relocated in 1972, and decided to build it here. Construction began in 1977, and on April 6, 1979, the Kanazawa Municipal Library opened at its current location. (The library was later renamed the Kanazawa Municipal Tamagawa Library.)
The (former) Municipal Library closed on November 30, 1978, closing almost half a century of its history.
I was unable to find out when the building was demolished, but the Kanazawa General Health Center was built on the site in 1982. It is now called Kanazawa Health Plaza Otemachi West.
I found the library that was still open in the aerial photo, taken in 1975, three years before the library closed.
The building indicated by the arrow is the main building, and the archive stacks can be seen to the north of it. The stacks are longer than the original plans when the building was completed. The building that has a light blue roof was probably added later.
[Reference] (all written in Japanese)
“Records of Kanazawa City celebrations for the Imperial Enthronement" (Kanazawa City / 1929)
“Kanazawa Municipal Library Guide: Commemorating the Imperial Enthronement" (Kanazawa City Library / 1936)
“Kanazawa City History: Contemporary Edition, Sequel" (Kanazawa City History Compilation Committee / Kanazawa City / 1989)