Miho Hiyama
Book Service Division, Public Services Department

This article is a translation of the article in Japanese of the same title
in NDL Monthly Bulletin No. 588 (March 2010).

Fig.1: Elevation view

In April 2010, the rebuilding of the old Kabuki-za (theater for Kabuki) started. The National Diet Library (NDL) holds the original draft of the initial architecture (Fig.1). The present Kabuki-za which had originally been designed by architect Shinichiro Okada and completed in 1925, was renovated and rebuilt after the war in 1950. The original draft of the architecture owned by the NDL is that of 1925 and titled “Dai sanki Kabuki-za: Kyu Kabuki-za” (Third-stage Kabuki-za: Former Kabuki-za).

Fig.2: Aperture card

This corpus of original drafts of the architecture with 313 drawings of the Kabuki-za, excluding construction plans, is a collection of 9,859 original drafts of the architecture in 349 items drawn by the Okada brothers, Shinichiro and Shogoro, active architects from the Taisho to Showa periods. It was donated in 1980 by the NDL from Shogoro’s family after his death. It is said that in 1953, Shogoro sat on a jury of the architectural draft competition of the new Nagatacho building (present Tokyo Main Buidling) of the NDL, which led to this donation. As it is rare to hold original drafts in a library and it was also the first time for the NDL, making catalogs and preservative operations were done under the direction of architecture experts. They were converted to microfilms in 2002, and are now provided to users in microfilms (aperture card. Fig.2). Shinichiro undertook much western style architecture, and was also known as a past master of Japanese concrete structure; so the collection includes drawings of Holy Resurrection Cathedral (usually called “Nicholai-do”), renovated in 1930, and the Meiji life insurance building, completed in 1935.

The original drafts were drawn on Mino-washi, Japanese paper, with black ink or pencil. Curves were drawn freehand. The magnificent Chinese cusped gable over the front door (Fig.3) and patterns on poles (Fig.4) were depicted elaborately, which shows Shinichiro’s sense of beauty and meticulous attention to detail. Besides plinths, some full scale drawings of chairs, roof tiles and electric lamps are included in the collection. He also made a full scale drawing of the Chinese cusped gable over the front door and directed the construction.

Fig. 5

Aside from the original drafts, calculation documents of the load bearing ability of the structure such as poles and foundations was left as “Kabuki-za tekkotsu tekkin kozo keikakusho” (Fig. 5), which shows that allowance were made for wind pressure and earthquakes. During construction, the Kabuki-za was hit by the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, and materials caught fire, the roof burned away and building operations were suspended. However, as the shell built with concrete was not significantly damaged, they were able to carry on with the construction.

The Kabuki-za was mostly destroyed except part of the front entrance and exterior wall of the ground floor in the Great Tokyo Air Raids in 1945. The rebuilding was commissioned to Isoya Yoshida, professor of the Tokyo Fine Arts School, in accordance with a desire to use the part which had remained after the fire and keep the surface as before. For this reason, the design by Shinichiro which adapted the opulent style of the Momoyama period (late 16th century) can be partially seen on the current exterior. As still-used buildings designed by Shinichiro are decreasing, it would be worth visiting the Kabuki-za before rebuilding to sear its image into your eyes..

Note: This article was written before the rebuilding started. Now, the new Kabuki-za is under construction.
As of April 2011, this article’s author is in the Planning and Cooperation Division, International Library of Children's Literature.

“Kabuki-za zumen”, by Okada Shinichiro, about 1921
(Okada Shinichiro, Shogoro kenchiku sekkei genzu shusei)
NDL Call number: VC12-23

ref.:
Kabuki-za hyakunenshi. Hombunhen, supervised by Takeomi Nagayama, Shochiku, 1993
Kabuki-za, ed. Kabuki-za Shuppambu, 1951
Mitsuo Okawa, Kindai nihon no ishoku kenchikuka (14) yoshikibi ni susunde junjita kisai Okada Shinichiro, Kagaku Asahi, vol 43 (2), 1983.2, pp. 123-126

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