Kenji Miura: In portrait

Kanagawa Prefectural Music Hall opened in 1954 as Japan's first full-fledged music hall as a public facility. Modeled after London's Royal Festival Hall, the hall was designed to achieve the best possible acoustics and was praised at the time of its opening as having "the best sound in the Orient." Its sound continues to receive high praise both domestically and internationally. The hall's walls are all made of wood, and its acoustic sound continues to move people even 60 years after its opening. Furthermore, as an excellent public facility rooted in the community, it was selected as one of the "100 Best Public Buildings" by the Ministry of Construction in 1998, and in 1999, it was selected as one of the "20 Best Modern Movement Buildings in Japan" by DOCOMOMO (an international organization established for the documentation, research, and preservation of buildings and environments related to the modern movement) as an important cultural heritage building of the 20th century.