Shimane Prefectural Library, original building (島根県立図書館旧館)

Shimane's prefectural library goes back to 1873, when a book-reading room opened in Matsue; it passed from the city to the prefecture in 1946. Until 1966, the Matsue prison stood west of the prefectural offices, on the former medicinal herb garden of the Matsue domain. It was then moved to the edge of the city at the insistent request of local residents, and the prefecture bought the land. The present building was completed there in October 1968, and reading services began. It is the work of Kiyonori Kikutake's office.

A prefectural annex was to rise on the car park between the library and the neighbouring martial arts hall, and Kikutake planned it together with those two buildings. Beneath it, a plant was to supply hot and cold water for air conditioning in the surrounding buildings. Neither the annex nor this district network was ever built, and the floor-heating pipes buried in the hall were never used.

In 1983 a new building added General Reading Room No. 1 and an underground stack. The ageing facilities were renovated in 2001, and seismic strengthening took place at the end of 2013. In 2019 the group of buildings put up around the prefectural offices, the library among them, was selected by DOCOMOMO Japan as Modern Movement architecture in Japan. On 24 June 2021 the national government registered the library as a tangible cultural property (building).

The building has two storeys above ground, in reinforced concrete with part of the structure in steel. Its plan rests on an L-shaped reading-room module that Kikutake devised and called the library's "kata", its model type: the librarian stands at the pivot of the L to support readers in their reading and research. Repeated in series, the module adapts to plots of different shapes and lends itself to later extensions; here it is laid out to fit the shape of the plot.

Outside, the exposed-concrete frame traces a continuous zigzag, the result of lining the modules up along the moat. Despite the concrete, these staggered walls somehow recall traditional architecture such as the shoin halls of the Katsura Imperial Villa, and sit comfortably in the historic setting around Matsue Castle.

Set outside the windows and aligned toward the park around Matsue Castle, the load-bearing walls stand at 45 degrees to the glazing so that they do not block the view of the castle hill from the reading rooms.

At the centre, a steel-framed roof of complex shape covers a double-height hall. Kikutake calls this organisation around the hall the "lobby system": most of the main rooms, reading rooms and offices, open off it. The hall also holds exhibition and rest areas.

The main staircase climbs from the ground floor to the central counter upstairs. Its reinforced-concrete steps are thinner and lighter than the material usually allows, and its underside suggests an abstract sculpture. A former deputy director of Kikutake's office counts it among his favourite staircases of those the office designed. The office also designed a stool for the hall.

It is still the prefecture's library, open to everyone. Upstairs are the central counter, two general reading rooms, the room for documents on Shimane, the reference room, an area devoted to business and employment, and the newspaper and magazine corner. On the ground floor are the children's room, a corner for secondary-school students, a 40-seat study room, a meeting room and a reading room where shoes come off. The local holdings include a collection handed down from the Matsue domain.

The reading rooms open to the public can be visited freely; a group of ten or more should tell the library beforehand. For each building in this group, the prefecture asks visitors to introduce themselves at the reception or office before visiting.

The library opens at 9 am; it closes at 7 pm or 6 pm on weekdays depending on the season, and at 5 pm on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. It is closed on Mondays (if the Monday is a holiday, it opens that day and closes on the next weekday), on the first Thursday of the month (same rule), from 28 December to 4 January and during stocktaking periods.

From Matsue Station, take a bus to the stop near the prefectural offices, then walk about five minutes.