Two Buildings I Encountered on My Hiroshima Trip: First, a Fire Station
A Fire Station That Blends Into the City and Opens Itself to the Public
On one sweltering summer day, I took a trip to Hiroshima. This is the story of two buildings I came across there. The first was the Hiroshima City Nishi Fire Station.
After dropping my luggage off at the hotel, I took a taxi to the fire station as my first stop, and the driver kept checking with me over and over, laughing: “The fire station? You really do mean the fire station…?”
Yes, the fire station was exactly where I wanted to go! It may be pretty rare for someone’s first destination in Hiroshima to be not okonomiyaki, not the Atomic Bomb Dome, and not Miyajima, but a fire station… yet it was somewhere I’d wanted to visit for a long time.
And here it is: the Hiroshima City Nishi Fire Station, standing just beyond the street trees.
Peeking through the gaps in the trees, I could see a stylish building distinguished by its louvers. Behind them, the walls are glass, so you can faintly see inside.
That visibility—being able to see inside—is the building’s defining feature. Apparently, the concept was to help local residents understand the fire station better and feel closer to it. It’s a work by Riken Yamamoto. (This is his second appearance on this blog! The first one was here.)
At first glance, it hardly looks like a fire station at all. Even the hint of red you can see through it feels stylish somehow, almost like a Le Corbusier building.
Let’s Explore Inside the Fire Station
If the timing works out, they’ll let you go inside. Just what you’d expect from a fire station that’s open to the public.
https://www.hiroshima-navi.or.jp/post/006604.html
Of course, I made sure to visit at a time when I could get in! At the entrance, I told one of the firefighters that I wanted to look around, wrote my name in the visitor log, put on something like a visitor pass around my neck, and set off on my architectural exploration.
The space behind those louvers is actually a passageway, and you can walk through it to look around inside the fire station. Along the way, there are display areas like this one.
There’s even a training facility for the firefighters inside. If you’re lucky, maybe you can catch them in the middle of a drill!?
As you can see, even the offices are enclosed in glass. On a sunny day, the space fills with natural light and feels wonderfully pleasant.
This gives you a sense of the building as a whole. You can really see how much of it is glass.
This is a fire station that protects the daily lives of local residents. Thanks to the architecture, its presence feels much closer and more familiar. It was a wonderful visit.
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