🇯🇵Japan·Open to visitors

Former Ōita Prefectural Library, Art Plaza (旧大分県立大分図書館)

Ōita, Ōita Prefecture

Sources checked November 2026

“Hollow beams of exposed concrete, giant paired walls and half-level floors: a representative early work by Isozaki, in his hometown.”

Year: 1966
Architect: Arata Isozaki
Type: Library turned cultural centre (reinforced concrete)
Access: Open to the public, free entry; the permanent Isozaki exhibition is suspended for maintenance (official website, November 2026)

Completed in 1966 by Arata Isozaki's atelier in his hometown, this former prefectural library is recognised by its hollow beams of exposed concrete, the huge paired walls of its façade and an interior built on half levels. Registered as a national cultural property in 2022, it became the Art Plaza in 1998, a municipal cultural centre where the top floor is given over to models and documents on Isozaki's work.

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In depth ≈ 2 min read

History

Arata Isozaki, born in Ōita, designed the prefectural library of his hometown with his atelier; it was completed in 1966 and earned him the Annual Prize of the Architectural Institute of Japan.

The prefectural library closed in August 1994 to move to a new building; the city of Ōita then received the building from the prefecture, first on a free loan (April 1995) and later as its owner, together with the land. It fitted the building out as a gallery for residents, and it became the Art Plaza in 1998. On 31 October 2022 the state registered the former library as a cultural property (building), as a representative early work by Isozaki.

Architecture

The building is of reinforced concrete, with one basement level and three levels above ground, and a floor area of about 4,080 m². On the outside, hollow beams of exposed concrete with a square section project from the wall, and the façade shows huge paired walls.

Isozaki expresses his thinking through methods that he turns into concepts; one is cutting, represented here by the section of the beams projecting from the wall, which also signals that the building can extend, develop and grow.

Inside, the space plays with half levels and differences in height. In the library, the entrance was on the first floor, the book stacks on the ground floor and in the basement, and the reading rooms on the first and second floors. The 60's Hall, on the first floor, combines a floor that rises in two steps towards the back, wide side walls spanned by massive beams, and indirect light falling from above that changes the look of the volume, open across two levels, from moment to moment.

Use today

The ground floor and the first floor house galleries for the city's residents and places for artistic creation. On the first floor, the 60's Hall shows contemporary art on a permanent basis, centred on the avant-garde group Neo-Dada, active in the early 1960s.

The second floor has nine small rooms, from 12 to 111 m² (462 m² in all), with a permanent display of models and documents on Isozaki's works around the world.

Visiting

Entry is free. The centre is open from 9 am to 10 pm (the room devoted to Isozaki, on the second floor, until 6 pm); it closes from 28 December to 3 January, unless an event is being held. From 1 April 2027 it will open from 9 am to 6 pm and will also close on the second Monday of each month (if that Monday is a public holiday, on the next day that is not one). It is a ten-minute walk from Ōita station.