Fukui: Dinosaur Faculty Building Unveiled in Japanese University’s New Campus

The Yomiuri Shimbun

12:55 JST, April 25, 2026

KATSUYAMA, Fukui — The Faculty of Dinosaur Paleontology building belonging to Fukui Prefectural University has been completed on the university’s new campus in Katsuyama, Fukui Prefecture.

The three-story concrete building was designed by renowned architect Kengo Kuma.

The horizontal stripes on the exterior of the new building were inspired by geological strata from which dinosaur fossils are often excavated. Walking through the entrance reveals a three-story-tall atrium named Abdominal Hall, a large space designed to look like the inside of the abdominal cavity of a dinosaur skeleton.

Facilities on the first floor include a fossil cleaning room containing with 20 sets of equipment for removing rocks around fossils, a lab installed with a CT scanner capable of scanning fossils more than 1 meter long and a library.

On the second and third floors, there are labs, lecture halls, faculty offices and more.

The Faculty of Dinosaur Paleontology was launched in April last year. The inaugural class had 34 students. Students majoring in the subject will study at the university’s Eiheiji campus in the prefectural town of Eiheiji in their first year before moving to the newly opened Katsuyama campus. The students will gain knowledge and skills through training at the Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum next to the campus.