Roadside Station Kadena "Learning displays Room" Renovation

At the "Kadena Roadside Station," you can get a panoramic view of Kadena Air Base, the largest US Air Force base in the Far East. This project was a renovation project for the "Learning and displays Room" on the third floor of the building, aiming to enrich it as a "place for peace learning" for school trip students and tourists, and a "place for local learning" for local people and children.

displays begins with a prologue explaining that Kadena Town is truly a "base town," with U.S. military bases taking up 82 percent of the town's area. It then traces the town's history surrounding the bases, from the prewar period when it flourished as an economic, cultural, and transportation center, through the Battle of Okinawa which led to the formation of Kadena Air Base, through the period of U.S. military rule when the bases continued to expand, to the post-reversion period when the burden of the bases continued, and up to the present day, prompting visitors to consider, "Why are the bases here? Why have they not been removed?"

Using the keyword "There's a base in my town," displays unravels the presence of the base from the perspective of "me" and "my family," who have lived next to Kadena Air Base, and features interview footage of people living in Kadena Town and manga commentary featuring "me" and "my family." The exhibit is designed to help visitors think about the base in a way that makes it easy to relate to them, with displays allow visitors to experience the noise and smells while thinking about life in a base town, and displays that allows visitors to place Kadena Air Base on a map to get a sense of its size.

・We want to make many people aware of the fact that Okinawa Prefecture continues to be overburdened with U.S. military bases after the war, and also create a place where they can think about war and peace and learn about the history of the region through the existence of the bases. .
・We would like to enhance the site as a base for peace learning tourism, taking advantage of its ability to overlook the U.S. military base, and attract tourists, including students on school excursions.

We have received the above requests.

・Incorporating videos and manga explanations from the perspective of ``ordinary people'' living today, and creating a place where you can actually experience sounds and smells, etc., to address the heavy and difficult theme of base issues, which is often avoided. We have devised ways to draw everyone in and learn with interest and interest.