Centennial International Student Memorial Hall

The Centennial International Student Memorial Hall is a cultural exchange facility that connects the stories of young Asian students who visited Japan in the early 20th century, seeking new knowledge and technology, to the future.
The museum was opened with the aim of becoming a place where different cultures and values intersect, and where people can deepen their mutual understanding through dialogue, including by hosting exhibitions.
Our company was responsible for the planning and basic concept of the Centennial International Student Memorial Hall, as well as its design, layout, building execution. We also handled displays design and construction for the special exhibition "The Footsteps of Young Zhou Enlai in Tokyo," held to commemorate the hall's opening.

In the early 20th century, when Japanese culture and industry were flourishing, many Asian students came to Tokyo to study. Many of them became great leaders who led their countries after returning home, but there were also many who faced various problems during their student life in a foreign land.
What kind of aspirations did they have when they came into contact with Japanese learning and culture, and what hardships did they face while pursuing themselves? Looking back on that history, we wanted to create a spatial experience that would teach the importance of intercultural understanding and taking on challenges, and a place that would serve as a cultural exchange hub that would serve as a bridge between Japan and Asia, where the younger generation could gain inspiration to carve out their own future.

We focused on the fact that even though they were great people whose names will be remembered for generations to come, they had the same "worries" as people living in the modern age. We created a spatial experience that allows visitors to learn about the worries of international students at that time using a variety of approaches, including graphics and video, a four-and-a-half-tatami room that depicts life at the time, and interactive content that allows visitors to actually have conversations.

The special exhibition also focuses on the diaries that Zhou Enlai kept during his time as a student abroad. To create an displays that makes visitors feel as if they are stepping into the diaries, book motifs are incorporated into concept design, and symbolic objects inspired by the actual diaries have been created.