Hiroshi Senju Museum

I first known Hiroshi Senju when I was in Naoshima last autumn. There is one of the art house that called, Ishibashi, where his painting was exhibited along the well-renovated traditional house. Hiroshi Senju is a Japanese painter. His famous works are the series of 'Waterfalls'. They were stunning.

Hiroshi Senju Museum is located in Karuizawa, Nagano prefecture. The town itself is famous for its number of summerhouse. It is a summer getaway for the rich Japanese, as for what I've heard. It took less than 1hr and a half to get there (from Tokyo station). The museum was designed by Ryue Nishizawa which is another reason why I really wanted to visit it so bad.

'Senju asked me to create and open, luminous space where people would observe his works, relax and spend time in contemplation. The museum, which gently hugs the natural slope of the site, has lighting controlled by deep eaves, silver screens, and UV cut glass while allowing in the greenery. The open space was designed to unite Karuizawa's nature and Senju's art. I wanted to create a union of park and space that felt as inviting as a private living room.' , Ryue Nishizawa, the architect.

: OLYMPUS35DC x KODAK PORTRA400
and a snapshot of an interior which I took a quick shot while the automatic door hadn't closed yet.

Kumamoto

Baby, it’s cold outside.

It’s getting colder and colder here in Tokyo. The autumn leaves have all long gone by now. Yet, I still have a lot to write about my first Autumn in Japan. My last entry was all about Autumn leaves, viewing Momiji, the maple leaves, and Koyou, Ginko leaves, changed their colours are quite impressive.

When Autumn was about to be gone in the end of November, I was lucky enough to be invited to join the Kumamoto Artpolis event in Kumamoto with my earlier college professor and 5th year students from Bangkok. While in Kumamoto, I visited places, saw things, and captured some photos, as usual.

Let’s start with the first day, we walked to Kumamoto castle, so the city isn’t so big in my opinion, the weather was nice, sunny and chilled. Actually all the original buildings were demolished during the war or something in the past. The leftovers were only some foundations and some drawings of the castle for the government to re-build it all over. What I interested here are the stone wall around the castle, they were cut and put up in a very unique angled, I read some information but already forgotten the name of the method. The stone wall’s slope is getting very slope at the top, to protect the castle from any intruders. Inside the main hall, which has been re-build in whole, there is an exhibition showing the construction of the building and also the recreation of the building purpose’s atmosphere.

I personally think that Kumamoto is a nice place to visit, as for the architectures’ admirer, there were some splendid things to see. Kumamoto station Shiragawa (East) gate, stood Ryue Nishizawa-san’s Public arcade shed which is now only 1 phase constructed, and at the West gate, Sato Mitsuhiko-san’s Public bus stop shelter. In the city, Kazuo Shinohara-san’s Police station also stood very elegantly both during day and night time. I only had a chance to see the building in the night because our schedule there was kind of busy and I couldn’t get up in the early morning to go. Shame on me. In the night time, you can see the structure of it very obviously, but during daytime, according to the search engine’s photo, the facade glass are all reflective kind that you can’t see anything inside it.

The Artpolis held the architectural tour another city in the area of Kumamoto prefecture by bus. We visited Yatsushiro, Toyo Ito-san’s earlier works; Yatsushiro Fire station, Yatsushiro Municipal Museum. These two architecture were completed more than 20 years ago, yet we can still feel how contemporary they are now.

Mostly iPhone5s and lots of filters :P

Teshima

Twenty minutes from Naoshima in a sunny day in pre-Autumn was a pleasant journey. We took the first ferry and get back on the last one.

A woman at the information desk advised me to rent a bike so that I don't have to wait and stick to the bus timetable that doesn't come every 10 minutes but more than half an hour, but since I was travelling in a group of 10 people and not everyone are bikers, we all agreed to use the bus route.

On the way to Teshima art museum, on a bus, we thought we made the right choice because the island's topography is made up of many small hills, our legs would definitely turn into jello after biking. 

Teshima Art Museum is consisted of Rei Naito's artwork and Ryue Nishizawa's architecture. Before visiting the museum, I didn't know that the art exhibiting in there is what. I was amazed by how architecture and art come together so beautifully. Inside the waterdrop-like architecture, constructed of concrete, without column, 40 to 60 metres wide, 2 open-skylight connected the architecture to nature, there was numerous waterdrop appearing from very tiny holes and flowing randomly on the floor. I couldn't figured it out why some drop just stay still and some flow to find the drain. It was mesmerising. It's funny how I could just sit and stare peacefully in silence for a very long time.

And again, they don't allow any photograph inside the art space. Please refer here for Iwan Baan's gorgeous photos.

Christian Boltanski Les Archives du Coeur was set up on the farthest area of the route. It stands beneath the beach, facing the sea. There, you can listen to stranger's heartbeat or pay to record your heartbeat sound too. We didn't understand much about this one but we did enjoy the view and have a little rest on the beach. But, I had listened to somebody's heartbeat, totally stranger from across the continent, it was strange but interesting.

I was too tired to get to Mori Mariko's work which I really would love to see, I was too tired though, I stopped at Shima Kitchen and have a nice lunch set, which was very satisfying.