Kinjō Junior High School, Kaga (加賀市立錦城中学校)

The school opened in 1947 as the junior high school of the town of Daishōji, now part of Kaga. It occupies its second building, designed by Tadao Ando: completed on 24 December 2002, it has been in use since January 2003.

The building consists of an elliptical block, with a ceiling height of 6.85 m, and a wing open to the community, joined to it at an angle. At the centre a large two-storey void is crossed by three bridges and a staircase, and receives natural light from a rooflight. This space gives the school the unity of a single volume and encourages exchange between pupils of different years; Ando regards it as "another classroom" and hoped it would serve a free kind of learning, not confined to set frameworks.

Local cedar from forest thinnings is used inside and out; the irregularity of each piece of timber echoes the diversity of the pupils.

The building includes study rooms and large open spaces, where pupils can follow a lesson or work on their own.

This is a junior high school in operation, in the Daishōji district in the centre of Kaga: it can be seen from the outside.