There is a small slither of land in Tokyo's Kita-Aoyama district that is wedged between the rolling grounds of the grand, neo-Baroque-style Akasaka Palace state guesthouse and the equally expansive, tree-lined grounds of the granite-constructed Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery. Given the nature of the neighborhood, you'd probably expect the land to host a police station, a shrine or a park. It doesn't. Since July last year it has been the site of one of Tokyo's newest — and most unlikely — art schools.
The Gaien Campus, as the school is known, is the Tokyo branch of two art universities: Kyoto University of Art and Design, and Tohoku University of Art and Design — both of which, it is planned, will soon be operated by the same foundation: the Uryuyama Gakuen.
Since opening, the campus has been holding classes in art and cultural practice — drawing, oil painting, ceramics, tea ceremony and so on. And now, as befits a facility in such a prominent location, it is going international, offering a series of courses in Japanese culture that will have simultaneous English-language interpretation.