Description

Commissioned by Shinji Shumeikai, a religious community founded in 1970 by a group of exceptionally wealthy Japanese, the Chinese-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei designed a museum for antique art objects of both Eastern and Western provenance that lies in the midst of the Shigaraki nature reserve near Kyoto.

As leitmotif for his design, Pei cites the ancient Chinese tale “Peach Blossom Spring,” according to which a fisherman is lured into a cave by the scent of flowers and discovers the valley of a lost paradise through a crack in the rock wall. Pei really has created an imposing design in the apparently untouched mountain landscape. From the isolated reception building leads a path – to be understood as inner preparation for the artistic experience – initially into a tunnel through the mountain and then across a filigree bridge suspended by steel cables over a deep ravine and onto the round forecourt, from which a terrace-form ramp climbs to the museum that receives visitors first of all with a light-flooded entrance hall. Using modern means, its form and construction paraphrase the structures of traditional Japanese temple architecture and refer – this is a significant element – in varied and subtle ways to the surrounding landscape. The consideration for nature expressed in strict building regulations that only allow a very limited building height and roof area resulted in almost 80 percent of the entire building volume, of which only a few parts and glass roof pyramids are to be seen from outside, having to be sunk at great cost into the mountain.

The actual exhibition rooms, some of them tailored to specific objects, are situated in two differently formed wings that are accessible from the entrance hall, each via a narrow gallery. Their window walls stage the features in the landscape panorama – with exactly placed trees carefully planted in the earth on top of the concrete roof – to appear as if they were on show, like precious objects specially presented. In contrast to this, the exhibition rooms, lit by lamella- directed light from above, are of varying sizes and shapes, each of a geometric clarity, their severity mitigated by the warm tones of the honey-coloured limestone. Three garden courtyards complete the ensemble, transforming it into a modern temple for the meditative contemplation of art.

The Japan Architect 4/1996, pp. 24-25 • Miho Museum. Connaissance des arts, Paris, 1997 • Casabella 658/1998, p. 26-33 • Bauwelt 33/1999, pp. 1776-1777 (Ulf Meyer) • James Grayson Trulove, Designing the new museum. Building a new destination, Gloucester/MA, 2000, pp. 58-63 • Carter Wiseman, I.M. Pei. A Profile in American Architecture, 2nd ed., New York, 2001, p. 317 ff.

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Originally published in: Paul von Naredi-Rainer, Museum Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2004.