More AIAV by Isozaki

 

The Akiyoshidai International Art Village is a major project of renowned Japanese architect Arata Isozaki.

It is located in a narrow valley below the Akiyoshidai Karst and near to Akiyoshido, the biggest cavern in Japan.

In the previous post I showed you the ancillary buildings that include a copy of one of  Isozaki's earliest works. In this post I look at the large main building.

It was quite eerie exploring as there was not a single other person around.

Most of the doors were locked....

I would have liked to have seen the main auditorium, capable of seating 300. It has a very unusual layout and has three floors. The space can be rearranged to make any part of it the stage.

To the rear is an outdoor performance area. This has a fan-shaped grassy slope that enables up to 600 people to view a performance.

There is a central courtyard that has a square stage in the middle of shallow pools of water. Some of the rooms facing the courtyard can open up to blur the distinction between inside and outside.

There is a large gallery for exhibiting visual arts, but there was no exhibition when I was there.

There are a bunch of studios, to be used by artists in residence. They appeared to be empty.

There is also a cafe space, but that was closed.

There are rooms for seminars, and dressing room spaces for performing arts.

I liked some of the spaces,... the outside area with canopy held up by narrow pillars..... the narrow tunnels between the main building and the outside performance area....

I also liked the various materials used on the different eteriors... concrete, marble, metal sheeting, glass....

I have posted on several of Isozaki's buildings before, like his early library, now the Art Plaza in Oita that also has a gallery of his models and drawings.

I also  did a short piece on the occasion of  his death in 2022.

The previous post was on the other structures that make up the AIAV.

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Garden at Taimasan Shrine

 

This is the second post on the garden at Taimasan Shrine. In the previous post, I showed how the garden looked in 2010, but this post is photos from a visit at the end of 2021.

In the second and third photos, a new garden has been built between the entrance to the shrine and the old temple garden. This new garden was built by the current head priest and is composed of two parts, Iwakura, and Iwasaka.

An Iwakura is a rock into which a kami descends, and an Iwasaka is a rock that mark the boundary of sacred space.

This makes this new garden very much a shinto garden.

The major difference in the main garden from when I visited 11 years earlier, is the white gravel area.

Also, this was the end of May, so some of the small trees are now full of leaves, and there are still a few flowers left on the azalea bushes.

For information on the history of the garden, please refer to the previous post.

The previous post in this series on  MountTaima, literally Hemp Mountain, was on the garden 11 years earlier....

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Akiyoshidai International Art Village

 

The first place I stopped at to explore when I got to Akiyoshidai was the Akiyoshidai International Art Village.

It is tucked away up a narrow valley at the edge of the karst and I had never seen it before on any of my previous visits to the karst and cave.

A huge red sculpture stands at the entrance. It is Untitled No. 218 by the Japanese sculptor Yonekichi Tanaka.

The main reason I wanted to see AIAV was because it was designed by Arata Isozaki, a major Japanese architect whose work I appreciate.

The first section was the residential complex. Terraced concrete pools emukate the rice paddies that stood here before.....

An then a complex of buildings that includes a rebuilding of one of his earliest works that has been demolished at its original site in Oita.

The Nakayama House was the first house designed by Isozaki after he set up his own arhitectural firm in 1964.

The facsimile built here in 1998 is now used as a salon, connected to another small building and with the large restaurant building behind it.

AIAV was set up to be an arts center that brought international artists to stay in residence. Both visual arts and performing arts.

I think it is still ticking over with a few projects each year, but it did not become as successful as hoped. In some ways, it reminded me of the sports centre in Kagoshima, which was also built with numerous residential facilities and was intended to become a hub for national and international sports training. However, it now only offers gateball for its elderly population.

The largest structure in this set of ancillary buildings is the restaurant, which still seems to be operating.

Clad in unpolished marble, it is a huge cathedral-like space measuring 7 meters wide by 13 meters tall and 30 meters long.

Each end of the building glass, with one framing the main arts center building which I will cover next...

I did read that the location and idea for the arts centre actually came from Isozaki himself. Another intriguing rural art museum by him is the Museum Of Contemporary Art in Nagi, Okayama.

The previous post was on the Iwanaga Hachiman Shrine I visited earlier on my walk.

If you would like to subscribe by email just leave your email address in the comments below. It will not be published and made public. I post new content almost everyday, and send out an email about twice a month with short descriptions and links to the last ten posts