Isamu NOGUCHI & Moere

The rooftop of the GLASS PYRAMID

This article first written in September 2009 and compiled in September 2011


Isamu Noguchi designed the railings of the two peace bridges in the city of Hiroshima. His Japanese father worked as a professor at the university in Tokyo I graduated from. And above all, what he did was very attractive to me, especially the so-called earthworks of his. He once said, "One day I had a vision: I saw the Earth as sculpture." 

Due to these facts, Noguchi’s name has always been in my mind. So when I first came across a bit of information about Moere Numa Park, which I instantly knew I would love, I was convinced that someday I should be there. I do not exactly remember my first encounter with Moere but it should have been about ten years ago.

For many reasons, I couldn’t make it up to now but I gratefully feel that was destined that way. The grand opening of the park was in 2005. If I had been there earlier than that, I could have missed some of the works “sculpted” on the earth of the park. The time was just right and Mother Nature treated me kindly, providing the perfect weather.

Noguchi first came to Sapporo, Hokkaido on March 30, 1988. He was already at an advanced age of 83. He was shown three candidate locations suggested by the city of Sapporo for the planned grand park. One of them was a garbage dump site which the city had already started part of the transformation into a large spacious park. The city started the groundwork in 1982. Fortunately, however, when Noguchi saw the site, it was still barren and garbage was flying in the wind. No wonder because 2.7 million tons of garbage was brought in before the waste treatment plant in Moere Numa was finally closed in 1990.

In a sense, the land had not been tampered by anyone (except by the general public who produced the garbage) and it had to be infused with vision.

I believe that was much better than those already formed and shaped and nicely prepared in accordance with mediocre plans and designs.

Moere was what Noguchi showed keen interest in.

It’s never easy to give birth to any sort of things. But Noguchi was quick to come up with the ideas. In November, 1988, he presented the final master plan for the park.

When he had a meeting with the man who later became the director of the completed park in November, he showed the models of the park and the Black Slide Mantra for Odori Park in downtown Sapporo and jokingly said, something like “Now you can do without me.” This meeting turned out to be the last.

He passed away of pneumonia on December 30, 1988, leaving the master plans for the park and the Black Slide Mantra. He was 84.

Moere Numa Park is 189 hectares (467 acres) in area, larger than half the size of Central Park in NYC.