Kanazawa Citizens' Art Center, Arts center in Kanazawa, Japan.
The Kanazawa Citizens' Art Center occupies the brick factory buildings and warehouses that the Kanazawa Spinning Company (later Kinaka Spinning, then Daiwa Spinning) built between 1923 and 1927 on a site where spinning began in 1919. The city bought the site and reused the brick industrial structures as a complex for citizens' artistic activity, with the former office building registered as a Tangible Cultural Property. It also houses the Kanazawa Craftsmen's College, which trains workers in the building skills needed to maintain the castle town's traditional culture.
The site is a former spinning mill: Kanazawa Boseki, later Kinbō Boseki and Daiwa Boseki, opened here in 1919 and built the brick factory and warehouse blocks between 1923 and 1927. The city bought the grounds and buildings and converted them into the art village, which was completed and opened in October 1996. The office building is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan, and the complex won the Good Design Grand Award for 1997.
The site also houses the Kanazawa Shokunin Daigakko, a craftsmen's college founded to train and pass on the building skills needed to maintain the castle town's traditional culture. Its name, geijutsu-mura or art village, reflects its use as a base for citizens' artistic activity, run by the Kanazawa Arts Creation Foundation.
The site lies at 1-1 Yamato-machi, about 15 minutes on foot or 5 minutes by taxi from Kanazawa Station's west exit or the Katamachi crossing. Buses from Musashi-ga-tsuji stop serve the nearby Daimame bus stop via Korinbo. Parking is available on site.
The office building on the site is the only structure individually registered as a Tangible Cultural Property; the former spinning mill warehouses were converted rather than rebuilt. The complex won the Grand Prize of the 1997 Good Design Award. A Kanazawa Craftsmen's College also operates here, training carpenters and other building craftsmen.
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