Sou Fujimoto Architects has shared photos of the firm’s recent Maruhon MakiArt Terrace design in Ishinomaki, Japan.
The project sought to rebuild an important piece of the region’s cultural infrastructure that was destroyed by the devastating earthquake and tsunami, which claimed the lives of more than 3,000 local residents there on March 11th, 2011.
Responding to a brief that called for a revitalizing centerpiece for the city of 147,000, the design team created a 140,000-square-foot building that plays host to two 1,254- and 300-seat theaters, exhibitions areas, a public gallery, and learning spaces for a variety of different users.
A poetic linear arrangement is created as repeated gable ends combine with alternating “chimney-like” rectangular forms connected by a 170-meter (557-foot) long entrance lobby along the south orientation.
Inside, the program’s functions are organized with exhibition spaces and the small theater to the western side of the lobby entrance, which includes a small foyer and is punctuated by a 98-foot fly tower form to its east. A vivid white coating of corrugated metal side cladding finally gives the recovering community a sheening new centerpiece to signify the start of a new chapter in its optimistic ongoing turnaround.
The firm says its hope is that “the building will not be a landmark that imposes a single effect but something that is built on ambiguity and is flexible enough to allow various people to share their own impressions. All while having a strong presence.”
The roofline of the complex is meant to evoke the memory of past structures which once lined the nearby Kitakami River. Finally, the Center doubles as an emergency shelter in a secondary context which enhances its intentions and importance to the local community.
SFA added its design “suggests a new way to think about rural public complexes.” The project was completed in 2021 in time for the ten-year anniversary of the tragedy, with Arup serving as engineering consultants during the 15-month construction phase.
The firm also recently completed its Hainan Sky Mountain pavilion and will finish work soon on a new coastal resort concept that’s set to debut later this summer on Ishigaki Island.
8 Comments
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First, I marvel that a town of 147k could support such a center. Is there anything equivalent over here? And I am quite curious how it will be used and how much, the ultimate test of any building.
It is a sizable building, but isn't imposing. Rather, it is intimate, informal, and inviting. And it promotes the idea of a town, of a collective, in varied ways, without any theme or mass dominating. I am reminded of Aalto's town hall in Saynätsälo.
(Will?)
in the 90's japan spent a lot of money in small towns in order to dilute the concentration of work and economic development outside of Tokyo. It didnt exactly work and there are astounding projects littered across the country with few people to enjoy them. (as an aside, my first job in Japan was with an office that worked with Ron Herron on his only built project - in small town Japan). This project is part of the reconstruction effort after the 2011 Tohoku disaster, probably explaining its viability at least to get started. The upshot is that it is policy, culture, and a symbolic response to a massive disaster that is creating the inertia for the project. Sou Fujimoto takes all of that and delivers an impressive building. I hope that it is supported into the future and grows into something substantial beyond the building itself.
Thanks. The center needs people to come to life, and it's a sad thought that it might be lightly used. I'd be curious to get a report some ten years down the road. I'm probably being sentimental, but that such a building might bring life to a community speaks to the potential of architecture.
absolutely. The projects I was involved in were more star-architect driven and pavilion-like than architectural. This one is much more oriented to the people, hopefully placing it better for its future. With shrinking population it may be rough, but there are good examples where it has worked. The buildings by Ando and sejima etc around Naoshima and Inujima are a good example. The town I lived and worked in before moving to Tokyo has one of Libeskind's first projects (a strangely cute installation) as well as a few early projects by Enric Miralles and other star-architects. The Miralles projects are all so very good it is a pain to see them overlooked. The ones that remain vibrant are connected to the city and the people. Feels like that is the key ingredient with all architecture, and especially in smaller cities like this...
I want to read Japanese overtones in this, but am ill equipped to do so.
This is amazing, the bulkhead door - how it speaks with both the window and the facade. The whole project reminds me of Calvino.. Building as a city within a city..
. . . it is enough for someone to do something for the sheer pleasure of doing it, and for his pleasure to become the pleasure of others: at that moment, all spaces change, all heights, distances; the city is transfigured, becomes crystalline, transparent as a dragonfly.
from Calvino Invisible Cities, Hidden Cities 3
This center is suggestive on so many levels, so quietly, so subtly that I am reluctant to name them.
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