Takaharu Tezuka, Yui Tezuka, Keiji Yabe (TEZUKA ARCHITECTS)
Hirofumi Ohno (OHNO JAPAN)

The light is overflowing. The auditorium is covered with fretwork screens. The forest of Niijima is drawn on the screens. In the late Edo period, Joe Niijima travelled to United States illegally in order to studied Christianity. This led to the starting of a church in Annaka when he returned to Japan. Thereafter, Joe Niijima founded Doshisha when he travelled to Western Japan. After 70 years, these institutions ,which can be referred as the seeds down by Joe Niijima, grew up as a forest at Niijima School. Niijima Junior College is the youngest forest grown from the seeds. Drawing inspirations from the Garden of Eden, I drew a scene which extends from a deep dark forest to a brightly lit vast field. This forest does not exist anywhere in the world. It is a forest that is deep and dark that spans from the east to west and opens up to the brightly lit south.
The desire towards ornamentation is an impulse to showcase the innate human wisdom. Space and light are not the only architecture. This project is an attempt to break away from modernist rule for more than a century.