April 18, 2019

A Shinto groundbreaking ceremony for the site where the Academic Resources Exhibition Facility (provisional name) is set to be built was held on Wednesday, April 17 at the former location of the now demolished East Annex of Mita Campus.

At the ceremony, President Akira Haseyama was joined by both members of the Keio community and representatives of Mitsubishi Jisho Sekkei Inc., who are in charge of the overall design and supervision of the project; Tokyu Construction Co., Ltd., the construction contractor; Nippon Densetsu Kogyo Co., Ltd.; Sanken Setsubi Kogyo Co., Ltd.; and stakeholders from the neighborhood. The rituals of kuwairenogi, which involves striking a pile of soil with a ritual hoe, and tamagushihoten, or the offering of tamagushi, a sprig from the sacred sakaki tree, were performed during the ceremony, which was followed by a naorai post-ceremonial reception at the East Hall.

At the “Keio Museum Commons,” which will be established within the facility following its completion, practical learning rooms for educational activities and other spaces to collect and store cultural resources and to allow exhibitions will be made available. It is planned that these will deploy a new model for exhibition and collection which leverages cutting-edge technologies to reconcile analogue and digital contents.

The 11-story building is planned for completion in June 2020, while the exhibition facilities are expected to open in March 2021.

In addition, there are plans to link up in various ways for exhibitions centered around the Museum Commons with the “Keio History Archive Space (provisional name),” which will be located in the Old Library. This archive space is due to be completed in the summer of 2020 and will serve as a platform for the dissemination of Keio’s school philosophy and traditions to the world, while introducing the history and traditions of Keio University for a general audience.

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