Watanabe Junichi Museum of Literature

The museum opened on 20 June 1998 in Sapporo. It is devoted to the writer Watanabe Junichi (渡辺淳一), born in 1933 in Hokkaidō, who entered Sapporo Medical University (札幌医科大学) in 1954 and graduated in 1958. A lecturer in orthopaedics at the same university, he wrote alongside his medical work; he won the Naoki Prize in 1970 for 光と影 and published 失楽園 in 1997, a novel that sold more than three million copies.

Watanabe wanted "not a ponderous literary museum, but a novel and brilliant one", which people would enjoy coming back to "again and again". He took part himself in shaping the building and its exhibitions.

The design is by Tadao Ando's office (安藤忠雄建築研究所) and the construction by Kajima (鹿島建設). The building was completed on 20 January 1998, five months before the opening.

The building is reinforced concrete, with one storey below ground and three above, on a 622.22 m² site: 344.11 m² of footprint and 1,120.56 m² of floor area. Its image is a swan standing on one raised leg in pure white snow.

It faces the street 鴨々川通り, along Nakajima Park (中島公園), just west of the Kitara concert hall (札幌コンサートホール Kitara). Other cultural facilities, among them the Hoheikan (豊平館), are nearby, in a quiet residential district.

On the ground floor, large glass windows bring light into a tall open space (吹き抜け) that holds the library and the cafe. The basement contains an 82-seat hall, designed with particular care for acoustics.

On the first floor, a permanent room gathers photograph panels from the writer's childhood to his later years, documents collected while he was creating, notes, original manuscripts and personal belongings; a special exhibition room takes up a single theme. The displays also trace his career and the making of a work from manuscript to proofs, and show posters and scripts of the film and television adaptations.

On the ground floor, the library holds all of Watanabe's works, for consultation in the library only, with no lending; the cafe can be used without visiting the exhibitions. In the basement, the hall is rented to the public for lectures, concerts, piano recitals and theatre.

The museum is open 9:30 to 18:00 from April to October and 9:30 to 17:30 from November to March; the last entry is 30 minutes before closing. It is closed on Mondays; when the Monday is a public holiday, it closes the next day. The cafe takes last orders 30 minutes before closing and asks visitors not to bring in food or drink from outside.

Address: 札幌市中央区南12条西6丁目414, Sapporo. It is an 8-minute walk from exit 3 of 中島公園駅 station (南北線 subway line) or 3 minutes from the 中島公園通 streetcar stop. The car park has 4 spaces, reserved for visitors to the exhibitions and bookable by phone.

There is no step between the pavement or car park and the entrance, the entrance door is automatic and there is a lift; the museum does not lend wheelchairs.