Waiting Area

Three tufted armchairs sit against a wide bank of windows in the waiting area of Family School Fureai, Yubari, Hokkaido. Most of the glass is cracked or broken. Pale daylight comes through the gaps. Ceiling tiles hang loose from their grid overhead, and a rusted pipe lies across the debris-covered floor at the base of the chairs. The room carries the particular stillness of a space that was furnished for people and then left exactly as it was. The building began as Yubari Municipal Asahi Elementary School, a new reinforced-concrete three-storey structure built in 1975 on the demolished site of the older Yubari Daini Elementary School. It opened to consolidate three predecessor schools, Yubari Daini, Teibi, and Fukuzumi, whose combined enrolments had collapsed alongside the coal industry that sustained the city. The three schools had once held thousands of students between them; by the time they merged into Asahi, only 351 remained across 13 classes. The building was purpose-built and already underenrolled. Eight years later, in 1983, Asahi Elementary closed as well, its students absorbed into the newly formed Yubari Elementary School. The building stood vacant through the 1980s and into the early 1990s. In October 1994, Yubari Kanko Kaihatsu Co., Ltd. was established by Yubari City as a third-sector tourism entity, with the city's mayor serving as representative director. The former school became the company's first facility, converted into a public lodging and group training operation under the name Family School Fureai. Classrooms were repurposed as guest rooms; communal bathing and dining facilities were added. The tourism strategy that included this building ultimately contributed ¥18.6 billion to the ¥35.3 billion fiscal deficit Yubari City declared in 2006. Yubari Kanko Kaihatsu filed for bankruptcy on 2 April 2007, carrying ¥5.46 billion in debt. Family School Fureai was not among the facilities transferred to the successor operator. It was left without a custodian, and has remained so since. The gymnasium roof collapsed under snow accumulation in January or February 2021. The armchairs in the waiting area have not moved.