Model of Mita Campus Just Before the Great Kanto Earthquake

Coming from Mita-dori, looking up at the octagonal tower of the library and passing through the slope of Maboroshi no Mon to emerge "Oka no Ue", one sees the Mita Enzetsukan (Public Speaking Hall) exactly as it was in the era of Yukichi Fukuzawa, and to its left, the red brick building of the old Jukukan-kyoku (Keio Corporate Administration). Turning right in front of the Jukukan-kyoku, a so-called main street opens up, lined with wooden school buildings on both sides. Beyond the Ginkgo Tree in the Quad, one can see the Public Hall, which was beloved by Keio students and also known as the Keio-za. In the southeast corner of the campus, the Japanese-style residence of the Fukuzawa family spreads out; on the northwest side is the School of Medicine preparatory course, below the cliff on the west side is the Yochisha Elementary School, and the Keio Futsubu School stands where the Chutobu Junior High School is currently located.

At that time, Keio University facilities were all located in Mita, except for the School of Medicine (main course) and hospital in Shinanomachi, and the dormitory in Tengenji where the Yochisha is now located. Among the buildings reproduced here, the only ones still in existence are the library and the Mita Enzetsukan (Public Speaking Hall). Due to the sorrow of a private institution with few assets, the wooden buildings that made up the majority were repeatedly relocated; some moved to Lake Yamanaka (Building No. 3), while others moved to Hiyoshi and then returned to Mita after the war to become one of the first buildings of the Chutobu Junior High School (Building No. 4). A foreign teacher at the Juku reportedly remarked, "Japanese real estate is actually movable property."

In exhibitions of school history, the topic of school buildings is a standard feature. On the other hand, it is also true that no one but alumni would feel much interest in them. Therefore, we chose to exhibit a model that has intrinsic appeal. Since the oldest existing aerial photograph dates to 1923, and the traces of the campus from Fukuzawa's lifetime were almost entirely lost due to the Great Kanto Earthquake, we decided to recreate this specific point in time.

Regarding the hardships of the restoration, Daiki Shiraishi, a researcher at the Keio University Fukuzawa Memorial Center for Modern Japanese Studies, wrote in detail in this magazine (February 2021 issue). Even if it was unknown, the number of windows and the color of the walls had to be decided, and for things like the back of the school buildings or the toilets—which were all outside the buildings at the time—we had no choice but to make an educated guess.

What can be seen of the history of Keio University within this reproduced space? We hope you will "experience" this small world, where even the daphne and trumpet vines once written about by poets have been subtly recreated. This year marks exactly 100 years since the Great Kanto Earthquake, when this landscape was lost.

(Takeyuki Tokura, Associate Professor, Keio University Fukuzawa Memorial Center for Modern Japanese Studies)