Museum Of Modern Art Wakayama

 

The Mueum of Modern Art in Wakayama City is located across from the ruins of Wakayama Castle in the downtown area.

It is in front of, and connected to, the Wakayama Prefectural Museum, and both were designed by Kisho Kurokawa.

In fact I preferred the Prefectural Museum both for its architecture and for its exhibitions.

I couldnt get any sense of what the architecture was about and the exhibitions were not articularly appealing.

The msueum has a collection of more than 10,000 artworks, mostly Japanese, and mostly Wakayama-based artists, though its print collection is considered quite good. It has a few pieces by non-Japanese artists, Stella, Rothko, and even a Picasso, though none of them are their best works.

The previous post in this series on Wakayama was the aforementioned Prefectural Museum.

Wakayama Prefectural Museum

 

Wakayama Prefectutal Museum is a history museum devoted to the history of what is now Wakayama.

It is kind of tucked away behind the more well-known Wakayama Museum of Modern Art, just south of the castle and park.

It was designed by the same architect as the Modern Art Museum, the famous Kisho Kurokawa. One of the founders of the Metabolist movement, he is probably most well known for his Nakagin Capsule Tower.

The Prefectural Museum uses a lot of glass and so is light and airy. I did enjoy taking some abstract interior shots.

The museum covers prehistory and the history of Koyasan, the Kumano region, the ruling clan of the Edo Period, and also covers "folk" history.

Prefectural museums are a mixed bag,.... some are really great, and some are quite weak and somewhat boring. As I left this one I was noticeably impressed with the range and quality of the displays and the also the low cost. 

I must admit that they had a nice collection of masks, and that always cheers me up.

The previous post in this series exploring Wakayama City was the Momijidani Teien Garden in the castle.

Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art

The Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art was opened in 1989 on top of Hijiyama overlooking the city.
The most noticeable feature is the circular structure at the main entrance.
The gap in the circle is oriented towards the location of the nuclear bomb epicenter.

It was designed by Kisho Kurokawa who designed many museums in Japan and is considered one of the founders of the Metabolism Movement, a contemporary style of Japanese architecture.

It is a very large structure, but most of it is below ground.

The style of the buildings reflects that of traditional Japanese storehouses.

The Atrium at Ehime Science Museum

The entrance to the Ehime Science Museum is through a perfectly conical atrium.

From there steps lead down to an underground tunnel that leads to the planetarium.

Information and photos of the planetarium can be found here, and photos of the outside of the museum complex can be found here.

The museum was designed by Kishi Kurokawa and it opened in 1994

It is located in Niihama, Ehime, and entrance is 500 yen for adults.

Once the biggest planetarium in the world

When it opened in 1994 this was the biggest planetariun in the world.

With a diameter of 30 meters this 300-seat planetarium can project up to 25,000 stars.

However, a couple of years ago it lost the title to a bigger one constructed in Nagoya.

Still impressive, surrounded by a reflective pool of water, this one is part of the Ehime Science Museum complex designed by Kisho Kurokawa and is located in Niihama.

Ehime Science Museum

The Ehime Prefectural Science Museum is situated on the hillside overlooking Niihama and the Inland sea.

It opened in 1994 and was designed by Kisho Kurokawa, an internationally-renowned Japanese architect who I am not very familiar with, but I have seen his Mojiko Retro Tower.

The complex of buildings uses geometric shapes... cone, triangle, cube, sphere,  semi-circles etc as well as a large reflective pool.

Embodied in the concrete is titanium, granite, and marble.

The museum is open from 9 to 5 daily, except Mondays. Entrance is 500yen