On July 18, 2025, the SAH Heritage Conservation Committee sent letters to Toyohito Ikeda, Governor of Kagawa Prefecture, Japan, and Hideto Oonishi, Mayor of Takamatsu City, urging them to reconsider the destruction of an architecturally significant 1984 modernist gymnasium after the recent completion of a new gymnasium facility for their community.
"The Kagawa Prefectural Gymnasium, completed in 1964 by Kenzō Tange, stands as a critical work of modern architecture. Built contemporaneously with the Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo—likewise a Tange design—it represents a parallel and complementary approach to structural and spatial innovation. While Yoyogi was engineered with Yoshikatsu Tsuboi, the Kagawa project involved structural engineer Takeshi Okamoto, underscoring Tange’s active pursuit of varied technical solutions to realize civic architecture on a transformative scale. Both buildings symbolize Japan’s dynamic emergence as a democratic and prosperous nation in the postwar period."
Read the full letter to Hon. Toyohito Ikeda here
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Image: Entrance to Kagawa Prefectural Gymnasium (1964, Kenzō Tange), Takamatsu, Ishikawa-ken, Chūbu, Japan. Photo by Jinny Jessica McGill via SAHARA.
