TADAO ANDO

Chichu Art Museum was constructed in 2004 as a site rethinking the relationship between nature and people. The museum was built mostly underground to avoid affecting the beautiful natural scenery of the Seto Inland sea. Artworks by Claude Monet, James Turrell, and Walter De Maria are on permanent display in this building designed by Tadao Ando. Despite being primarily subterranean, the museum lets in an abundance of natural light that changes the appearance of the artworks and the ambience of the space itself with the passage of time, throughout the day and all along the four seasons of the year.

Taking form as the artists and architect bounced ideas off each other, the museum in its entirety can be seen as a very large site-specific artwork.

Using solely concrete - the main material employed in Ando's architecture - steel, glass and wood, the design of the Chichu Art Museum is reduced to the very minimum. Built almost entirely underground, the museum balances the contradictory qualities of being both non-monumental but highly architectural.

source: Fukutake Foundation