Holocaust Education Center in Fukuyama



Holocaust Education Center


The Holocaust Education Center stands quietly on the outskirts of Fukuyama City. The first impression on the building personally was it looked pure and peaceful filled with subtle light. Inside, the white stairs unassumingly invite you upwards (Details of the stairs should be paid attention to). But before going upstairs, visitors are guided into an auditorium, where a 15-minute-long introduction film, either in Japanese or English, is aired after the roll curtains are pulled down over a large expanse of glass  window facing the rose garden. The roses, Souvenir d'Anne Frank, were bred and dedicated to Anne Frank who enriched her short life by keeping a diary for two years before she and the family were arrested and taken to Nazi concentration camps. The garden is cozy with flowers, round tables probably to sit down on, and the statue of Anne, especially around May when the roses are in bloom, gradually changing colors from orange to pink.

On the first floor, the lobby serves as a library with books, audio media, tables, and chairs (the furniture is well-designed). There’s a children’s library too, where kids take off their shoes at the round door to the library, go in, and spend their time freely. Nearby is a large pane of glass with symbolic stained glass pieces of butterflies and a poem composed by a child in the ghetto.

The Butterfly

The last, the very last,
So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.
Perhaps if the sun's tears would sing
against a white stone.

Such, such a yellow
Is carried lightly way up high.
It went away I'm sure because it wished to
kiss the world good-bye.

For seven weeks I've lived in here,
Penned up inside this ghetto.
But I have found what I love here.
The dandelions call to me
And the white chestnut branches in the court.
Only I never saw another butterfly.

That butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don't live here,
in the ghetto.

 

Butterfly stained glass



  

The second floor is the display area. The route is laid out properly. The replica of Anne’s hiding room makes you feel a little girl’s presence. An old small shoe left after the child’s death touches your heart and your thought would be extended to 1.5 million children who perished in the holocaust.

The HEC is made beautiful with the devoted effort of the architect and his associates and of course the dedication of pastor OTSUKA Makoto who met Anne’s father and was determined to let the children and people know about the holocaust so that we would remember the sacrifice and study the history and human nature, and eventually embrace each other with love.

The architect MAEDA Keisuke and the client OTSUKA Makoto were awarded the Dedalo Minosse International Prize in 2008. The prize is given to the architects aged 40 or younger due to their high-quality work and their clients for commissioning buildings. Click here to go to the Dedalo Minosse web site to read the evaluation on the HEC.

The HEC building uses geothermal energy as an attempt to be friendly to the earth.

 

Children's library

  

Stairs to the upper floor



Backside of the HEC and the garden

Nagi-MOCA or the Nagi Museum of Contemporary Art



Nagi MoCA's entrance


In a remote town called Nagi, Okayama Prefecture, where some 6000 people live, something unexpected awaits you. The exterior of the complex, the Nagi Museum of Contemporary Art and Nagi Town Library, looks unique but does not show off its significance. It looks neither imposing nor self-important. The architect says the museum was meant to shelter the three site-specific artworks which will be displayed here permanently and the library was for the sake of locals.

Once inside, you might love the coffee lounge, through the large window of which you see Mt. Nagi, calmly and kindly cradling the town. The black tables and chairs in the lounge were designed by ISOZAKI Arata, an architect who did this complex. The furniture looks charming and formative. You then proceed to be closer to the first artwork displayed in the Earth Gallery, entitled UTSUROHI (Transience), by MIYAWAKI Aiko. This artwork is visible once you enter the museum. 

You might be disoriented by the next artwork done by Shusaku ARAKAWA and Madeline Gins in the Sun Gallery. You are invited to step into the artwork, major part of which is a large cylinder where the garden of Nagi’s Ryoanji is produced. (Ryoanji is better known as the Rock Garden in Kyoto). Here’s a quote from the panel that elaborates on the artwork: Step into Ubiquitous Site· Nagi’s Ryoanji ·Heart to learn how not to die.

(The Heart part was later altered to Architectural Body.)

The last work, HISASHI－THAT WHICH SUPPLEMENTS is housed in a narrow semicircular wing, the Moon Gallery. The straight wall of the gallery is aligned with the moonlight shed at 10 pm on the autumnal equinox day.

The complex has a small gallery for special exhibits on the other side of the coffee place beyond the reception and off-limits area. On the upper floor is a town library with an atrium.

The one-storied building nearby, also designed by ISOZAKI, serves as Tourist Information, where a very friendly and affectionate lady greeted me and gave me useful info about the dining place on the slope of the mountain. The food was VERY good. Fresh from local farms and cooked right there by local staff. SOME scenery too, with the houses sprawling at the bottom and more surrounding mountains enjoying their presence in complacence.

The architect was conscious of alignment when he laid out each building, conceiving three axis lines. Details are shown in the official web site in somewhat awkward English. Click here to visit the web site.

At one glance, the architecture itself might not look so different or outstanding, but the alignment will serve the community well perpetually, cleverly incorporating the highway and the mountain in the landscape. The moonlight and north-south axis lines are also considered.

ISOZAKI learned under TANGE Kenzo before he started his own studio in 1963 and was at the forefront of the post modernism movement of architecture. Now an established architect, he’s been active in many fields and known as a critic as well.



Part of UTSUROI



Part of Nagi's Ryoanji

Inside the cylinder

Garden in the cylinder

HISASHI in the Moon Gallery

Town Library

Tourist Information

Nagi's rape blossoms



Expressive Ebayama Museum of Meteorology

Ebayama Museum of Meteorology

First it’s a museum featuring meteorology standing on a hill called Ebayama. The displays will amuse children and its surroundings with trees and seasonal flowers are suitable for families to come and spend a couple of hours.

Second, the architecture, one example of expressionism, alone is significant and makes a good reason for you to come over and take a look at the details.

Third the main building, built in 1934 and 3.7 km away from the hypocenter, survived the A-bombing and has been preserved and in active use.

As I mentioned the museum is architecturally attractive and expressive. Details should be enjoyed here, such as a single canopy support, a thin canopy top, a frontal balcony, oblong windows, polished artificial stones for inside walls and floors. The gentle-looking outside staircase and rooftop with ornamental triangular openings are also noteworthy. This building showcases the development of Japanese architectural techniques in those days when Japan caught up with the US and European countries in the field of architecture.

See the triangular openings and roundish staircase

Stairwall, meticulous job by artisans

MoMA's architect has his Museum of Garbage in Hiroshima

Hiroshima lost a lot on that sultry morning of August 6, 1945. The city does not have traditional buildings like Kyoto, Nara, and other lucky cities that escaped air-raids performed by US forces when Japan was losing the war.

But it has the architecture only this devastated and obliterated city can have. I’m not talking about the A-bomb Dome, one striking witness and embodiment of Hiroshima’s destruction and resilience. Instead what I have in mind are a number of buildings which are in active operation.

Some suitable examples of this kind are the Peace Memorial Museum & Park designed by TANGE Kenzo and the Memorial Cathedral for World Peace by MURANO Togo, representing Hiroshima’s post-war reconstruction. Both of them are architecturally fascinating, have historical significance, and reveal human anecdotes that universally pull your heartstrings.

But the architecture I’d like to introduce to you in this article is more contemporary, yet paying due respect to the city’s history and natural settings. I’m so eager to take you there and in fact I’m now concocting a one-day tour of learning Hiroshima in depth through architecture.

The first destination of the tour I proudly announce is no other than the Naka Incineration Plant, a handsome waste treatment complex standing on the reclaimed triangular land next to the sea, designed by TANIGUCHI Yoshio, who enjoyed great critical acclaim by completing MoMA’s extension in 2004. In fact, the New York Times commended the new MoMA complex as "one of the most exquisite works of architecture to rise in this city in at least a generation."

Architecturally and functionally meaningful, the plant is located at the very end of Yoshijima-dori street. It stands where one of the six rivers flowing in the city meets the sparkling azure of the inland sea.

 

TANIGUCHI worked under TANGE in his youth and respected the urban axis of vista that his mentor created with the Peace Memorial Museum and the Park. He stretched the axis, on which the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims, the Flame of Peace, and the A-bomb Dome are aligned, to the plant using Yoshijima-dori, though the street is not completely straight.

From the raised walkway called Ecorium are seen the Seto Inland Sea on one side and the urban sprawl on the other. Yoshijima-dori stretches to the north, eventually leading onto the premises of the Museum and the Park.

Here’s what TANIGUCHI had to say from the article he contributed to a July 2004 issue of an architectural magazine called SHINKENCHIKU.

This English translation done by me first appeared in the web site entitled arch-Hiroshima run by Makoto. Click here to jump to arch-hiroshima to see stylish pictures of the plant and read what web master Makoto has to say.

When I start working on the design, I try to visit as many structures of similar nature as possible. (snip) I saw many incinerator plants only attempting to hide what they were with various exterior designs. I, however, came to the conclusion that the exterior of the plant should be intentionally visible as an indispensable facility needed by contemporary cities and that the interior should be somehow public, which would help enhance the significance of the plant as an urban facility.

Architect TANGE, my mentor, designed the Hiroshima Peace Center in the Peace Memorial Park. Yoshijima Street starts there running toward the sea. The plant stands between the end of the street and the sea. That is, this site is right on the important axis of the city. It's in the middle of the sequence of two kinds of vistas, the city and the sea. So I decided to extend Yoshijima Street onto the premises to create a space leading the city to the sea. I had this idea in mind from the very early stage of designing.

The glass Ecorium (ecology + atrium) on the raised platform, grassy Ecoasis (ecology + oasis) on the ground along the inland sea, and the viewing gallery on the 6th floor are usually open to the public and accessible without permission.    

   

The plant tour is available free of charge if you apply ten days in advance of your visit. The inside is again enchanting. Hope I can be there with you.

 

The well-written article about this plant posted on the web site called Get Hiroshima operated by a couple from abroad (their mother tongue is English; and their web site is done in excellent English) gives you a very good picture of this place.

To read the article, click here.   



Three round chimneys for three respective refuse furnaces

are cased in this 59-meter-high rectilinear chimney.



Some of the eco-friendly secrets of the complex:

Air in the refuse pit is sent to the three furnaces and consumed there, containing foul odor inside the mechanism.

The flue gas is treated before being emitted into the atmosphere. The three giant wet scrubbers are part of the treatment system and remove HCI and Sox. They are visible through the glass. Tall and Sleek.

The plant generates 15,200 kilowatts of electricity from incineration heat when operating fully. This can power the whole plant and the surplus is sold to a local power company.

The plant heats up water by the heat from the furnaces and supplies it through underground pipes to an indoor swimming pool and a nursing facility for the aged in the vicinity.



Pagoda at Tanzan Jinja

 

Thirteen storied pagoda on a hill



Tanzan Jinja, a Shinto shrine, is nestled in the mountains of Tono-mine, Sakurai City, Nara. It’s not so conveniently located to visit but if you are interested in old towers of Japan (and perhaps hiking), the shrine is worth trying.

Horrendous traffic jams are seen here in fall when people come to see the colorful and brilliant foliage of trees like maples. The pagoda and other structures adorned by the autumn colors simply look breathtaking. However, if you gracefully give up the colors, you can completely appreciate the quiet surroundings. The precincts are the home of many kinds of trees including cherry trees so you don’t have to despair so much. Besides, the pagoda always stands there pleasantly.

It is the only wooden thirteen storied pagoda extant in the world. Originally built in 678 to pay homage by the eldest son to his late father, the pagoda went through destruction wrought by monk soldiers of the rival temple, Kofuku-ji built at the political center of ancient Nara. Both temples were affiliated with the powerful Fujiwara clan, the aristocratic family who enjoyed the favor of successive emperors and thus glory at the court life. But they were bitter rivals due to the difference of the sects they belonged to. Also many battles were fought around here in the middle age. The present tower is a reconstruction completed in 1532.

As I wrote, this Shinto shrine was, simply put, a temple. They converted from Buddhist entity to that of Shinto when confronted with the policy of the Meiji Government. Japan’s first modern government was frantically trying to catch up with the industrialized west and be recognized as one of the first-class nations in the world. The then government issued a decree that Buddhism and Shinto be clearly separated. Before this decree, the two belief systems operated together, inseparable and practically one. The original temple became Jinja, or Shinto shrine, in the latter half of the 19th century.

Pagodas evolved from burial mounds for the historical Buddha, Shiddhartha Gautama; thus it’s Buddhist rather than Shinto. However, as I’ve already mentioned, Buddhism and Shinto in Japan were two sides of the same coin and still are, despite the fact that the Meiji government tried to make a pure, nationalistic religion of Shinto by removing from it any possible influence and taint of Buddhism.

As a remnant of the past, Tanzan Jinja embraces a quaint thirteen storied pagoda　(17 meters tall, not that tall but the right height considering it stands on a rise).

Architecturally, this pagoda was made differently from the rest of the existing pagodas in Japan. All the others except this one adopted the style of multi-roofs with proper heights in-between, while the one here are rather that of multi-eaves densely layered on top of each other. This pagoda has through pillars, standing from the bottom to the top. The other pagodas do not have such; their only through pillar is Shinbashira, or heart pillar. This pagoda is said to have been modeled after the same type in ancient China which was long lost.

The name Tanzan (the mountain of discussion) was said to be coined because a prince and his trusted statesman Kamatari (later given the family name of Fujiwara by the emperor who was ascended from prince) discussed things over about the coup d'etat they were concocting. The pagoda was a dedication to Kamatari by his son. 



 See more pics below.



Inside the prayer hall




Hanging lanterns and stone lanterns below



The hall from the 17th century

Taken from an open space where ancient ball game was enjoyed