Your weekly journey into deep space
3 April 2019 This week I’ve been thinking about spaces that are particularly special—places that give you goosebumps or that you think about when you wake up too early in the morning. One of these spaces is The Teshima Art Museum on Teshima Island, Japan. The space is completely, unspeakably beautiful and feels like a cross between a hug and something built for angels, not humans. Teshima is one of twelve former fishing islands that exist in the Seto Inland Sea and which for many years suffered from a steady depopulation of residents, while the remaining population was ageing quicker than they could repopulate. In 2010 the The Setouchi Triennale (also known as the Setouchi International Art Festival) was launched and one of the main goals was to revitalise the islands with contemporary art and the tourism that would follow. Teshima, which has been inhabited for 14,000 years and was best known for its history of lemon, tangerine and persimmon farms, was chosen as the site for ‘Matrix’, a collaboration between Japanese artist Rei Naito and Tokyo-based architect Ryue Nishizawa. The museum, which is a word rather at odds with such an ethereal place and is meant to resemble ‘a water droplet at the moment of landing’, was built into the side of a restored rice terrace which was repaired in collaboration with the local community. The structure of the 40m x 60m ceiling is made of thick concrete though it’s polished surface makes it appear more like eggshell than a building material. Two openings have been carved into the roof which allow for the outside world to be both observed and interacted with, creating an intimate connection between the architecture and the environment. The day we went it was humid and rained relentlessly but we had a brolly and the island was so quiet and wild it all felt like part of the experience. It also meant when we went inside we experienced a strange kind of liminal feeling of being out of the rain and still in it. Rivulets of water spun across the floor and disappeared, a mist rose up from the surrounding forest and lazily drifted inside. Afterwards, completely struck by the experience, we walked down to a nearby village and stopped into a small hut for piping hot homemade takoyaki and a beer while we waited for the storm to pass. This space was a testament to design as emotion, as nature, as feeling, and it truly made my human being sing. Imagine if every human-built structure was considered in this way?! Happiness from concrete, who would have thought it… I Know the Pilot, anyone? Do you have a space that was particularly significant to you? Somewhere local perhaps? Let us know! Til’ next week, SM x
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