Kanazawa Municipal Tamagawa Library Annex (1)
This is a continuation of the previous article.
The municipal library located on the north side of Kanazawa Castle was closed at the end of November 1978, and moved to Tamagawa-cho and opened in April of the following year. This is the current Kanazawa Municipal Tamagawa Library. This building can be seen from the street, which used to be a tobacco factory of the monopoly corporation.
After the tobacco factory was relocated in 1972, Kanazawa City acquired part of the former site and built the municipal library.
Most of the tobacco factory building was demolished, but part of it remains and is used as an annex to the library (now called the Archives of Early Modern History Records).
The name of the library when it was relocated was “Kanazawa Municipal Library,” which was renamed “Kanazawa Municipal Tamagawa Library” in 1995.
The main building (designed by Taniguchi & Goi Design Co.) was also built in connection with the brick annex, but this article will not deal with that building, but only the annex.
Let’s start with the site of the monopoly tobacco factory.
Construction of the Kanazawa tobacco factory began in 1911. It is said that the design was probably by Kenkichi Yabashi of the temporary Building Department of the Ministry of Finance. At the time of construction.
The buildings were divided into four main types: factory, warehouse, office, workshop and other ancillary buildings, with the factory being constructed of brick and the other facilities being wooden.
The factory was completed in October 1913, and the office building was completed much later, in 1921.
The first aerial photograph we can see was taken in 1946.
The photo is marked. The red circle means the factory, the yellow circle means the warehouse for leaf tobacco and products, and the star marks the factory office. The factory was a two-story brick structure.
Aerial photo taken in 1962.
The brick factory remains unchanged, but the south side has been reconstructed. As above, the red circle means the factory and the yellow circle means the warehouse. The newly built factory building also included a dinning room.
On October 2, 1972, the Kanazawa Plant of the Japan Monopoly Public Corporation (Yonaizumi-cho, Kanazawa City) was completed and the plant was relocated.
This photo was taken immediately after the relocation, but the plant was still used as an office even after the move. Cars can be seen parked in the site. The buildings are much the same as in the 1962 photo.
Next is an aerial view from 1975.
Demolition of the plant began in 1973. At this point, the site was still owned by the monopoly corporation.
The monopoly cleared the northwest side of the site and began to use it by building a new office (star mark).
Now, in 1973, Kanazawa City decided to reconstruct the municipal library.
In 1976, the city acquired part of the site of the former monopoly corporation factory and built a new municipal library.
That is the building surrounded in yellow line. The building on the north side was constructed using the exterior of the former tobacco factory.
Construction began in October 1977 and was completed in November 1978. (The library was opened in April 1979.)
The aerial photo was taken in 1982, four years after its completion.
At this point, all the warehouses and factories of the monopoly had been removed, and all that remained was the office of the Kanazawa branch of the monopoly. The site to the south was developed into the prefectural Tamagawa Park in 1979.
The park and buildings have not changed much from the photo above, but I found a color aerial photo.
It was taken in 1997. The monopoly was privatized in 1985, and at this point it is the Kanazawa branch of Japan Tobacco Inc. The library also changed its name to “Kanazawa Municipal Tamagawa Library” in 1995.
This was supposed to be the end of the list, but I found a recent aerial photograph, so I will include it here as well.
This is an aerial view from 2024.
The west side of the site has changed significantly.
In chronological order,
In November 2008, the Tamagawa Children’s Library opened in the building of the Kanazawa branch of Japan Tobacco Inc.
And in 2020, the city of Kanazawa decided to rebuild the Tamagawa Children’s Library. Construction began that year, and the library reopened in April 2022.
In the photo, the trapezoidal building adjacent to the west side of the Tamagawa Library is the Tamagawa Children’s Library.
Then, to the west of it is the Kanazawa Municipal Chuo Elementary School.
In 2017, Kanazawa City decided to relocate the Chuo Elementary School to the north of Tamagawa Park and also decided to relocate the Kosho-machi Junior High School to the site of the old Chuo Elementary School (northeast of Kenrokuen Garden).
(And Kosho-machi Junior High School will close in March 2023, and Kenroku Elementary School will occupy the school building. So many things are changing that I can’t keep track of them all.)
So, in April 2022, Chuo Elementary School moved here.
In the foreground is Chuo Elementary School, and on the far left is the Tamagawa Children’s Library.
I was going to talk about the annex, but I was too busy just following the transition of this site.
I will bring up the photo of the Tamagawa Library Annex (only the exterior) in the next issue.
[Reference]
“Business Statistics” (Kanazawa Regional Bureau, Japan Monopoly Corporation / fiscal years 1954, 1957, and 1972)
“60 Years of Hokuriku Monopoly Business” (Kanazawa Regional Bureau, Japan Monopoly Corporation / 1982)