When the Mita Main Gate (South Gate) Was Built

2017/11/01

Image: On May 6, 1959 (Showa 34), the Mita South School Building and West School Building were completed as part of the 100th Anniversary Project, and a dedication ceremony was held. With the completion of the South School Building, a new South Gate was established, and an opening ceremony was held at the same time. In the center is President Fukutarō Okui.

Currently, when you enter through the Main Gate (South Gate), you can see the forest of Inariyama beyond the guardhouse building on the left, and the Enzetsukan (Public Speaking Hall) also comes into view. In fact, this Inariyama can be viewed in a way that truly feels like a mountain more from slightly before the Chutobu Junior High School main gate than from the Main Gate (South Gate). Back when the main gate was on the east side facing Mita-dori, that forest was the most secluded part of the Mita Hilltop Square. One would not even approach the Enzetsukan (Public Speaking Hall) unless there was some kind of event. Below the hill, a few private houses, including Tsunokuniya, which had miraculously escaped war damage, huddled quietly together. That was how it felt.

The appearance of the Main Gate (South Gate) and the South School Building fundamentally changed this landscape. To put it a bit grandly, the front and back of the Mita Campus were completely reversed. It even seemed as though the luxury of imagining the day's possibilities while looking up at the octagonal tower of the library from the steep cobblestone slope of Mita-dori had been lost. The hilltop landscape seen by students also changed significantly. Furthermore, the flow of movement for students and faculty on the hilltop changed greatly. In short, it significantly altered the view of the hilltop and gave the entire campus grounds a certain sense of space and brilliance. The appearance of the South School Building with its pilotis likely contributed to this as well. This coincided with the period when several private universities in Tokyo (such as Meiji and Rikkyo) began to acquire new land in the suburbs of Tokyo and develop what were called characteristic suburban campuses. Would it be an exaggeration to say that it played a role in significantly changing the concept of the Mita Campus? During the height of the student protests, many student rallies were held on the Mita Hilltop Square, and on one occasion, students filled the cobblestone path between the Main Gate (South Gate) and the South School Building so densely there was no room to stand. I thought it was an incredible sight. Regardless of the rights or wrongs of the situation, I still haven't forgotten the feeling that the university campus was seamlessly connected to the state of the world.

I have seen photographs from before the war of Keio students, about to head to the battlefield in the middle of their studies due to student mobilization, descending the Maboroshi no Mon in formation with the Sanshokuki at their head. For some of them, it must have truly been a "phantom gate" that they would never pass through again. On the other hand, the Keio students who filled the path in front of the Main Gate (South Gate) are surely Keio students as a "mass."

(Keio University Professor Emeritus Hiroyasu Iida)