The advertisement poster for the Fujita History Tour on November 13, 2023
On November 13, the Center for International Relations (CIR) of Fujita Health University organized a “Fujita History Tour” [link]. In this 60 min tour, a group of predominantly international students learned from Professor Emeritus Kazuhiro Maruta, who is the secretariat head of the alumni association at Fujita Health University, about the history of Fujita and its founder Professor Keisuke Fujita (1925-195). Professor Maruta was assisted by Professor Emeritus Shosuke Ito of the Institute for Melanin Chemistry and Ms. Naoko Nagata of CIR. In total, we were with 18 people and we first visited the museum (DOKUSOUICHIRI memorial hall) in Building 2 and then Fujita Hall 2000.
Fujita Hall 2000 was opened in 1987, inspired by the Vienna Opera House in Austria but also partly by decorative and music-technical design by Professor Keisuke Fujita himself, and has 2000 seats. At many sites in Fujita Hall 2000, we could see symbols of “nindou-fuji,” (忍冬藤, Japanese honeysuckle) the winter-enduring plant that Professor Fujita considered a symbol for our protection [link]. Among the many items in the museum were also the two dolls (see the featured image of this post) that were given by Professor Fujita to all students upon their graduation, and are symbols for patience and hope. The museum also showed the top-publications by Professor Fujita in the journal Nature.
All the students, as am I, were very impressed how Professor Fujita was like a “Renaissance man,” combining the highest skills of leadership, science, music, and architecture, and having an enormous drive to provide a beautiful and good environment for patients, students, and staff.
A fun part of the tour was that we were allowed to hit the big drum in the museum (see the photographs below).
The header image of this post was kindly provided from the FHU archive by our Public Relations Department.
Professor Maruta is explaining in the rebuilt study room of Professor Keisuke Fujita.
Professor Maruta, with help of Ms. Nagata, explains about the two dolls.
We were allowed to play the Fujita big drum in the museum.
Our group, minus the photographer, in Fujita Hall 2000.
