Ōkuma Auditorium, Gothic auditorium at Waseda University Campus, Japan
Ōkuma Auditorium is a Gothic-style building on the Waseda University campus in Totsuka, Japan. The structure rises three floors above ground with one basement level and includes a 37.8-meter (124-foot) clock tower featuring pointed arches, tracery windows and stone buttresses.
Architects Koichi Satō and Takeo Satō designed the building, completed in 1927 as a memorial to the university founder. Restoration work following war damage and later decades preserved the original design and its status as an Important Cultural Property.
The name honors founder Shigenobu Ōkuma, whose vision for the institution remains present in every ceremonial occasion. Students and visitors use the main hall for graduation ceremonies, classical music performances and public lectures that shape the academic life of the university.
The main hall seats more than 1,100 people and combines modern audiovisual equipment with restored original elements. Visitors reach the complex through the central university campus and should allow extra time for orientation during events.
The tower bells came from the McShane company in Baltimore and were the first in Japan to create harmonious sounds through a combination of four different bells. The import of these bells marked a technical advance in Japanese bell-making during the late 1920s.
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