The Noguchi Room and the International Center

Image: The Noguchi Room (Shin Banraisha). Welcoming President Chirac (1996)

Many of the buildings on the Mita Hilltop Square possess the distinct architectural characteristics of the era in which they were built. Perhaps because of this, some critics have remarked on a lack of unity (Mita-hyoron (official monthly journal published by Keio University Press), August/September 2017 issue). Amidst this, there was a period when a unified campus landscape spread across Mita. This was in the 1950s, when a series of school buildings and research labs designed by Yoshiro Taniguchi—to whom Keio University entrusted the urgent task of post-war reconstruction—made their appearance. The Second Graduate Research Building, the last of these to remain, disappeared in 2004, and today only a glimpse of its former self can be recalled on the 3rd-floor roof terrace of the South Building.

The International Center, located on the first floor of the Second Graduate Research Building, was a department established in 1964 through the progressive dissolution of the former Foreign Affairs Department. As Keio University's international exchanges became more active, it became one of the busiest departments in the 1980s. It was a "jack-of-all-trades" that handled all activities related to "international" matters: preparing research and educational systems for welcoming overseas researchers and international students, selecting scholarship recipients, securing housing, preparing immigration and residency documents, selecting outbound exchange students, supporting Keio students and faculty studying abroad, negotiating exchange agreements with overseas universities, and managing returnee and international student entrance exams. It also handled Japanese language and Japanese affairs education for international students (which became independent as the Center for Japanese Studies in 1990) and preparatory education for Keio students planning to study abroad. Because of this, the Second Graduate Research Building was the only place on the Mita Hilltop Square where people from different cultural backgrounds gathered—a sight that is now commonplace on every campus.

The lounge area of the Second Graduate Research Building, commonly known as the Noguchi Room (Shin Banraisha) and created through a collaboration between Yoshiro Taniguchi and sculptor Isamu Noguchi, was frequently used for informal talks and small-scale receptions with visitors from Japan and abroad. This masterpiece of modernism, which skillfully incorporated Japanese and Western elements, seems to have been particularly impressive to visitors. Keio representatives often began their conversations with first-time visitors by explaining this space as an icebreaker. The garden, featuring Isamu Noguchi's sculpture "Mu" (Nothingness), along with the green trees continuing from the adjacent Enzetsukan (Public Speaking Hall) (Inariyama), was a place with a unique atmosphere on the Mita Hilltop Square.

(Professor Emeritus of Keio University and President of Tokyo Rissho Junior College, Norikazu Kudo)