Chichu Museum

This little book......really a booklet.....is a guidebook to the Chichu museum on the Island of Naoshima in Japan's inland sea. So my commentary on the book is also partly about the museum itself. The Museum has been designed by Tadao Ando, the renowned Japanese Architect and uses his signature, bare concrete, throughout. But what bare concrete, The finishes are amazing and the design is equally amazing ......nearly all of the museum is underground and not very visible from ground level. The museum houses a relatively small number of items by significant international artists ...including Monet and James Turrell. There can't be many museums around the world that were specifically designed to house particular works of art but that is the case here. The book does a good job of covering these major works of art; the structure and architecture of the museum and gardens. A highlight for me was the James Turrell light sculpture where light almost become tangible. A disappointment was the Walter De Maria sculpture which I found somewhat trite...and trite in the context of a whole hall that had been designed to take the large black granite spheres.....so much so that the roof was installed after the sculptures. The photography in the book can only do so much...good as it is.
It's a great little booklet and a good guide to the museum. I can recommend it. (The version I has was in English).… (mehr)