The clock at the South Gate of Fujita Health University, in my childish mind, was a tower like the Big Ben in London, which you might climb from the inside to see a big mechanical ironwork. Besides, it puzzled me how the clock could look different through the history of our University as I had seen on pictures. So, I set out to find out more about this clock. Emeritus Professor Kazuhiro Maruta and Emeritus Professor Toshiharu Nagatsu kindly helped me with this, by providing information and lending me beautiful books.
The clock faces exactly southwards and is in the symmetrical middle axis of what Professor Keisuke Fujita M.D., Ph.D., President and Founder of Fujita Health University (1925-1995) probably considered the heart of the university complex (Figs. 10-12). The clock tower (at least its form), together with the Shinoyaki ceramic relief that expresses “dokuso-ichiri” (nowadays translated as “Our creativity for the people”) (Figs. 2, 16) and the two small round ponds that, together, form the “megane-ike” (pond of the glasses) (Figs. 4, 17, 18), are among the oldest structures of our University (Figs. 2, 3). At this site, Prof. Fujita liked to take pictures with the students.
Originally, the clock was on top of the auditorium building (Figs. 2, 3). For Prof. Fujita, the auditorium of a school or university was a sacred place. He spent countless time and effort on optimizing the sound quality of Fujita Hall 2000, the current auditorium of our University and now located behind the clock (which moved a bit closer to the ponds). But that will be a topic of a later blog post. For here, I just will quote Prof. Fujita on the importance of an auditorium from his 1993 book (which includes an English text) International Acclaim for Fujita Hall 2000—Interviews with Musicians—. There, he wrote: “During my school days, with six-years of elementary school, five-years of junior high school, two-and-a-half years of high school (I had to graduate six months earlier than normal in order to serve the army) and four-years of university, all schools without exception had a normally sacrosanct auditorium. Even at the university, where four-fifths of the school and hospital buildings were burnt down, the auditorium narrowly escaped from the damage as a sacred area. Thus, I came to have the fixed idea that an auditorium is an essential large space and serves a significant role, though seeming to have little use, by imparting to those who enter it a feeling that they should straighten up and be quiet. This was continuously at the back of my mind in my planning of the Fujita Health University.” and “……the grand piano, which was placed not on the stage but on the floor in the corner sounded mysteriously beautiful. Almost every student who experienced this kind of auditorium grew up to imprudently buy a piano for his children without considering the surrounding situation. Thus, Japan can claim the highest rate of home piano possession in the world!” Touching are also his descriptions of how, at high school, he and the other students listened in the auditorium to the soft-spoken farewell of their art teacher who had to join the war — “On that day, we could see tears in Prof. O’s eyes when he described one red and ripe persimmon left behind on a bare tree against a cloudless azure sky” — or, how at University, he would like to go to the library where he, from the nearby auditorium that as an exception had survived the war, could hear the piano played by a musically talented classmate who suffered from epileptic fits.
Back to the story of the clock. In the same 1993 book, Prof. Fujita wrote: “In 1964, when we established the educational foundation, opened the college and launched the construction of practice rooms, I started to design the first auditorium (Photograph 1 [Fig. 3 in this blog post] shows its elevation from the South side when completed). Most parts of this auditorium have now already been demolished, but we can find the Shinoyaki ceramic relief on the south wall to the east of the entrance, the engraved logo “Originality and Logic” which is the philosophy behind establishing the university, and “Rhythm” a ceramic work on the clock tower, on the 1st floor of Fujita Hall and in Fujita Kaikan.”
The different clock towers
I do not have complete information, but the following seems to be the case.
Unfortunately, for the childish part of my mind, the clock never had a big mechanical ironwork but has always been powered by electricity from outside.
The current clock tower (as in Fig. 12) must have been completed before 1987, which was the year that the Fujita Hall 2000 complex was festively opened. A very recent change was that a white ring with numbers was added (Fig. 1). The clock tower must be hollow and has ventilation windows (Fig. 14), but there is no door and from below there only seems to be a hatch that may hardly ever be used (Fig. 15).
In 1984, the current form of the tower, with the ceramic wall relief that represents life’s rhythm, and the white cover plates of the tower corners, already existed, although still standing on top of the old auditorium building (Fig. 9). This tower, or parts of it, must have been used for making the present tower. Note that in 1984 the roof of the building had a fence, suggesting that the clock tower may have had a door opening for entering the roof.
Seemingly between 1966 and 1982, there was a clock tower that was different from the current one, although it was similar in shape (Figs. 2-7). It did not have the same ceramic wall relief as the current tower. The roof fence and the fact that people used the roof (Fig. 4) suggest that there was a door in the clock tower.
I hope that later I can find out more information about the clock, which then I will add to this blog post.
