Hizuchi Elementary School

The 2012 World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize has been awarded to the Architectural Consortium for Hizuchi Elementary School for the restoration of Hizuchi Elementary School. Located in Yawatahama City, Ehime Prefecture, Japan, the school is a post-war functionalist wood school designed by Masatsune Matsumura (1913–1993), a once little-known, but now greatly admired Japanese municipal architect. The school was completed between 1956 and 1958 and restored by the Consortium between 2006 and 2009. The conservation and renovation of Hizuchi is a model project because of the masterful approach to preservation of a modern architectural work that is expected to continue to serve a community’s daily use. Its successful restoration is a model for publicly owned historic buildings at risk around the world.