Urawa Akenohoshi Girls’ School, Japan

Urawa Akenohoshi Girls’ Junior and Senior High School, was founded by The Sisters of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, of Quebec, Canada in 1967 with a mere 10 students. From the start it was dedicated to offering a high standard of education for girls.

The school is now overseen by a religious group of nuns called Akenohshi Gakuen and educates some 1,000 students, from kindergarten (boys and girls) and girls only to high school graduation. From its humble beginnings, it has grown in its 50 years of existence to become one of the most highly regarded schools in the country, with excellent facilities and a reputation for high academic achievement in a caring tradition based in Christianity.

Some 30 years ago, the school built a large auditorium, but as is so often the case, no provision was made at the time for a pipe organ. When the school first approached us about a new organ, finding somewhere to put an instrument presented us with something of a problem. The stage was not an option as that was needed for all sorts of events which take place in the auditorium.

The school engaged the services of an architect and what at first seemed like an unlikely solution, a new gallery on the right-hand side of the auditorium was proposed, one which the architect then realised with an elegant design which matched the architecture of the room to the point where one could hardly imagine it came as an afterthought.