CHAPTER 5 ART AND PLACE
5.2 ART, PLACE AND LOCALE
5.2.2 Contemporary Art Museum, Naoshima, Japan – Tadao Ando
Naoshima is a small island in Japan’s Inland Sea that has inspired Japanese artists and poets for centuries. As such, it was informally selected to be developed as an arts precinct. The Contemporary Art Museum and adjoining hotel in Naoshima is located on the island’s southern shore between a rugged, rocky promontory and a high, forested hill with built elements linking the museum and the sea.
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Figure 5 .2: The Contemporary Art Museum, Naoshima, Japan from the Inland Sea indicating the building of notional memory through siting and links with the topography and landscape. (source: Arcspace at
http://www.arcspace.com/architects/ando/Naoshima_Image_Library.html, accessed: 11-05-2012)
Arrival is by boat and visitors ascend a path of small, stepped, wildflower-filled plateaus and terraces from which to appreciate the context and discreet elements of the museum, on to a road that connects the museum to the local town. The approach to the building is intentionally ponderous and the terraces provide space for outdoor performances and contemplation.
Fig ure 5.3: Entrance to the museum uses the topography as part of the building’s program, maximising a visitor’s exposure to the context which has inspired Japanese art for centuries. (source: Galinsky at
http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/naoshima/index.htm, accessed: 11-05-2012)
In passing through the entrance, visitors descend into a large subterranean double volume gallery brilliantly lit by a conical skylight above.
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Fig ure 5.4: The main central double volume gallery indicating choice of materials and the effect of diffusing the natural lighting for which the island is renowned. (source: Arcspace at
http://www.arcspace.com/architects/ando/Naoshima_Image_Library.html, accessed: 11-05-2012)
Figure 5 .5 : The conical skylight of the main gallery, permitting the dramatic entrance of natural light. (source:
Arcspace at
http://www.arcspace.com/architects/ando/Naoshima_Image_
Library.html, accessed: 11-05-2012)
Figure 5.6 : Additional diffuse natural side lighting also used in the galleries as an effecting contextual response. (source:
Arcspace at
http://www.arcspace.com/architects/ando/Naoshima_Image_
Library.html, accessed: 11-05-2012)
Galleries are dispersed around the cylindrical space: on one side, the space opens to an exterior exhibition space that frames a view of the purple and green vegetation of the surrounding hills and the calm sea beyond; on the other side, deeply cleft into the hill side, the space opens to another exterior exhibition room, oval and completely secluded from the world by concrete walls but framing the sky above.
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Figure 5.7 : A view of one of the side galleries off the main gallery space, permitting the gallery connection with the landscape contained in figure 5.7. (source: Arcspace at
http://www.arcspace.com/architects/ando/Naoshima_Image_Library.html, accessed: 11 -05-2012)
Fig ure 5.8: Exterior exhibition space, connecting the internal with the external and allowing for the appreciation of the historical context. (source: Arcspace at http://www.arcspace.com/architects/ando/Naoshima_Imag
e_Library.html, accessed: 11-05-2012)
Fig ure 5.9: The second exterior exhibition space embedded in the earth and deeply physically connected to context. (source:
Kobrovski, C at
http://www.flickriver.com/photos/caspar_borkowsky/sets/7215 7608669926522/, accessed: 11-05-2012)
This second component was a later addition by Ando and contains ten guest rooms and a cafeteria. A visitor can pass through this second gallery and access the water plaza with its wall of cascading water or ascend to the green roof above, the highest point on the site, to reconnect with the landscape of Naoshima Island and views of the Inland Sea.
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Figure 5.10: The water plaza connecting the culturally important elemental aspect of the environment with the experience of art. (source: Arcspace at http://www.arcspace.com/architects/ando/Naoshima_Image_Library.html, accessed: 11-05-2012)
The overall composition of the main building plan consists of three overlapping cubes and a circle with a rectangular guest wing attached at an angle thereto. The simple geometric volumes are derived from the art contained in the gallery and are built into the hillside so as not to disturb the landscape but become part of it with exposed elements defining it.
Figure 5 .11: The basic floor plan of the museum consisting of three cubes and a circle, inspirationally drawn from the art contained in the collection. (source: Kobrovski, C at
http://www.flickriver.com/photos/caspar_borkowsky/sets/72157608669926522/, accessed: 11-05-2012)
86 The oval shaped hotel annex is situated higher up the hill and is accessed via cable car or via paths from the museum below. Housing several guest rooms, the elliptical hotel annex is accessed via a glazed corridor which traverses a stream with views of the sea on one side and the water plaza on the other. The annex itself surrounds an oval courtyard and a central pool that reflects the court and the sky above.
Figure 5 .12: The oval annex continues the experience of art into the guest wing of the hotel, connecting the culturally significant earth and sky, water and air, darkness and light into the building program. (source: Ogawa, S. at
http://www.clarkart.edu/about/projects-detail.cfm?ID=3, accessed: 11-05-2012)
To bind this museum to the broader island context, the Contemporary Art Museum is designed as part of a broader development. Art House Project in the residential district of Honmura is part of the museum complex and involves the restoration and transformation of existing structures into art installations by designers and artists by reinterpreting the previous life of the space, the tectonics of the place and Japanese traditions and aesthetics.
Minami-dera is one of the art houses designed by Ando to house the work of artist James Turrell and continues the memory of the raised temple that existed on the same site.
Materially, the temple is constructed of dark cedar wood planks, typical of traditional Japanese houses of the area. Spatially, the interior is completely dark and causes the viewer to be engulfed by silence and darkness. As the viewer’s eyes adjust to the lack of light, they encounter Turrell’s Darkside of the Moon (Silloway, 2004) and in this way, Ando cunningly responds directly to the artistic content of the space.
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Fig ure 5.13 : Minami-dera built over the site of a raised temple, echoes the memory of place through the dark cedar panelling which resonates with the surrounding residential buildings. (source: Ogawa, S. at
http://www.clarkart.edu/about/projects-detail.cfm?ID=3, accessed: 11-05-2012)
In these architectural works, Ando illustrates an obsessive attention to detail and, in the former example, a skilful manipulation of concrete which forms a neutral backdrop to the art works. Solemn, even ascetic in some cases, the experience of the galleries is a product of contemporary Japanese culture in which the detail justifies the scheme.
Figure 5.14 : Interior image of the main gallery capturing all the elements that Ando uses to convincingly bind the Contemporary Art Museum in Naoshima to its context through the application of cultural understanding, regional celebration and the vernacular, not in materiality but in e very other sense of the word. (source: View Picture Ltd. at
http://www.superstock.com/stock-photos-images/1801-33828, accessed: 11-05-2012)
88 The concrete in itself is not anything more than standard specification concrete but through placing emphasis on direct supervision and technical capabilities of the craftsmen the work assumes an exceptionally high quality. This is not without blemishes: changes in tone due to successive pours, the patina of the tiniest aeration in places, and so-on. Like a Japanese raku potter requires the unpredictability of the kiln to produce the capricious textures and designs typical of their craft, Ando revels in the unexpected and human flaws of the pour, preserving the memory of the hand of man.