Off to school

1__3331 Arts Chiyoda

Off to school

What is the meaning of the number 3331 in the name of this arts centre? Is it part of the address? Or a date? The answer is less banal, because the number stands for the concept of the institution, which appears, at first sight, to be a mixed-up array of things.

Once a middle school, it is now a place where people can take their offspring to a children’s workshop, eat and drink in a café-bar, buy arts and crafts in a large number of shops, purchase cameras in the Lomo shop, look at exhibitions, browse around a few galleries of contemporary art, hire rooms for workshops, walk past offices for design, architecture and urban planning, as well as those of software companies, discover a gym, and finally get supervision to cultivate organic vegetables in small beds in a roof garden. But what is the connection between all of this?

In Japan, when a job is finished and the results are celebrated, or at the end of the year in a company, or after a traditional festival, a ritual is held. Everyone claps hands, not anyway they please but together: three claps in quick succession, which is repeated for a total of three times. This is followed by one final clap of release. In numbers: 3-3-3-1.

This is the philosophy of it all: just as, in a school, everyone learns something new, but in each classroom something different is learned, here at 3331 everyone produces something new and creative, and joyfully presents the results when the work is done.

That is why the school-like character of the building was kept. In the lobby you see old blackboards. In the plain corridors you pass the large old communal washbasins, and markings on the floor in various colours show the way, as it used to be. And so you pass through what were once classrooms, marvelling like a schoolchild, and realise that you will experience something new the next time you come.

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Address アーツ千代田 3331, 3331 Arts Chiyoda, Sotokanda 6-11-14, Chiyoda-ku, 101 – 0021 Tokyo, www.3331.jp/en | Getting there Ginza metro line to Suehirocho, 3-minute walk | Hours Depending on exhibition or event | Tip For a contrast to contemporary design and art, walk approx. 10 minutes in the direction of Ueno Park to the Shitamachi Museum. Here life-size models depict the life of working people in the Edo period.