The Waseda International House of Literature, also known as the Haruki Murakami Library, is an academic building, library, and museum exhibition space at Waseda University in Shinjuku designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma.
As a young adult, Murakami attended Waseda University starting in 1968 and graduated with a degree in drama. Decades later, Murakami decided to donate thousands of books, vinyls, and archival materials to the university for archival purposes. As a "rebuilding, remodeling, and renovation of the old Building 4" on Waseda University's campus, the building's envisioning and subsequent construction took three years, starting in 2018. In addition to Murakami's support, the project received assistance from Tadashi Yanai, the chief executive officer of Fast Retailing. Murakami himself wanted to make a venue that was dynamic and alive, as opposed to a static place that people only wanted to visit once. In designing the building, Kuma "envisioned a lively place where anyone, including Murakami himself, could come to discuss the novelist's works and the future of literature over coffee, instead of a formal space for studying and whispering in hushed tones."
The building debuted for public entry on October 1, 2021. Hirokazu Toeda, a professor of modern Japanese literature at Waseda University, serves as the building's director. Professor Robert Campbell also helped with the building's establishment from the very start and has since served as its advisor.
The library portion of the building hosts over 3,000 of Murakami's novels in various editions and translated in over 50 languages. It also shelves books "organized by their relationship to Murakami's novels."
On the first floor of the building, the Orange Cat café provides a food and beverage menu inspired by Murakami's works. It also hosts a piano previously used in Murakami's jazz bar, Peter Cat, which he ran prior to his novelist career, as well as a replica installation of Murakami's study room replete with countless records. The café additionally sells merchandise.
On the second floor, the building possesses a public listening room with an audio system where visitors can play records.
The building has hosted several literary and music events since its opening in 2021, including readings by Japanese authors such as Keiichiro Hirano, Yoko Tawada, and Yà Âko Ogawa. On July 3, 2024, the building served as the venue for Waseda University's six annual Campus Piano event. In March of 2024, Murakami performed a public reading of his story, "Kaho", published in The New Yorker, to an audience of over a thousand attendees in order to fundraise for the libraryâÂÂJapanese author Mieko Kawakami was also a present reader.
The building has hosted several limited-time exhibitions.