New Research Building at Mita

2021/01/30

In January 1966, at the request of President Kunio Nagasawa, the Mita Research Building Construction Planning Committee was established, and the long-pending plan for a new research building suddenly became a reality. The current situation, with research laboratories from the first to the fifth scattered across various locations, was deemed a significant drawback for both academic research and education. By the end of October, the committee finalized the basic design plan and was dissolved. The plan specified that "the building will be located on the site of the 3rd School Building and the 1st Research Building, with seven floors above ground and two below. Research laboratories for the Faculties of Letters, Business and Commerce, Economics, and Law will be located from the second floor upwards, with stacks directly connected to each faculty's floor." The project was planned in two phases: first, demolish the 3rd School Building, located north of the West School Building, for the first phase of construction. Then, after temporarily relocating the facilities in the adjacent 1st Research Building, demolish it to construct the remaining half in the second phase, creating a new research building to house the four faculties.

In March of the following year, 1967, after 16 classrooms and a joint research office were newly established in the pilotis of the South School Building, the 3rd School Building was demolished. On May 22, a groundbreaking ceremony for the new research building was held. The western half of the building was completed by the end of July of the next year, and the move took place over the summer. While most of the private offices and the joint research office from the 1st Research Building were relocated there, some were also temporarily moved to the 2nd and 5th Research Buildings and the 1st School Building.

Meanwhile, from January 1967, a separate plan for a Research and Education Information Center was also underway. This aimed to improve service quality by having a single organization manage the entire process from collection to provision of books and materials for the research laboratories and the university library, which had previously been handled independently. In conjunction with the construction of the new research building, and to unify the library materials of the Mita research laboratories and the university library, there were also plans to install stacks on the east side of the new building (closer to the library) and to create an elevated walkway connecting the two buildings.

In November 1969, the new research building, with its dazzling white walls, was completed. This was just one month after the end of the university legislation dispute, marking a temporary halt to the long-running student conflicts. Upon ascending the few steps at the front and entering the doors, the reception desk was on the left. Beyond it were the offices of the deans of the four faculties, along with mailboxes for all faculty members and a telephone exchange room. On the far wall, an in/out board listed faculty names by department, with a light indicating if they were in their office. The faculty lounge on the right was a space for cross-faculty interaction and for meeting with outside visitors. The eastern side of the building, from the elevators on the right toward the library, became the Research and Education Information Center, with its headquarters in the basement. The floors from the first floor up housed the technical services departments of the Mita Media Center, such as acquisitions and cataloging, as well as the stacks for the former research laboratory books, the law materials room, and the economics and commerce materials room. The connecting walkway was located on the third floor.

The new research building was affectionately known as "Shinken" (New Research Building), but in 2000, a policy was issued to drop the "new" from building names, and it came to be called simply the Research Building. By that time, a shortage of research space had once again become an issue, and there was talk of needing a "Shin-Shinken" (a new new research building).

(Atsuko Ishiguro, Former Head of the Office of Communications and Public Relations, Keio University)