21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
| January 16, 2008

While traveling through Japan last winter, I stumbled upon this museum in Kanazawa (where I had the best sushi of my life). About the architecture:

The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa stands in the center of Kanazawa, on a site linking together diverse but equally important city functions. Circular in form, with a diameter of 112.5 meters, the building has no front or back, leaving it free to be explored from all directions. While being a reaction to the accessibility of the site from multiple points of entry, as well as to its breadth, the circularity of the plan also works in concert with keeping the overall building volume low, to effectively mitigate the scale of the project and an overly grand presence common to large institutions. In order to further encourage the multiplicity of approaches, the architects have intentionally resisted establishing a primary façade or entrance.

I managed to catch a cool exhibit of work by Kiyoshi Awazu. I bought the catalog, but unfortunately the museum site hasn't posted much of the work online.

Link:  21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

Tags:  art, design, japan, museum