Let's Reconsider Kyoraku-kan

     Kyoraku-kan was registered as the sixth national corporeal property in Ibaraki Prefecture July 1999. The condition of the property registration is based on following three items .They are “contribution to the historical scenery”, “to be standards of attainment“ and“ reconstruction is not easy”.
  Kyoraku-kan was constructed as the second theater of Hitachi Mining Company for the facility of employee’s welfare 1917. Up-to-date and cabin-structure design was based on those of Imperial Theater and Kabuki Theater buildings, and it was completed in only nine months with taking in much unique idea and technique.
  Kyoraku-kan is a primitive scenery of Hitachi city together with the Big Chimney for exhaustion and it was not only the recreation center for the employee and their families but the dispatch base of culture opened to the citizen as well. In the new year and the Sanjin-sai (Festival of The God of Mountain) Kabuki play etc. was performed with free of charge. Moreover, cheap entrance fee and selected performance articles cultivated the culture of Hitachi basically. Especially, it had much to do with school education, to be the frontier of cultivation of sentiments through students’ literary arts exhibition and film shows and so on.
  Together with 88 years the social environment has changed so much and Kyoraku-kan, which was a magnificent play booth reputed as the top theater in Japan except Kabuki Theater at that time of construction, was transferred to Hitachi City 1967. Still now it is used as a municipal gymnasium for Judo, Kendo and so on.
  A group of “Reconsider Kyoraku-kan” was organized 1993 from the viewpoint of high cultural value of industrial heritages scattered alongside Miyata river and they are aiming at promotion of a new town with practical use of these facilities including Kyoraku-kan. We want all of the citizens to consider about the revival of Kyoraku-kan as a play theater once more.