Suimei Contemporary Art Gallery

The Shinobazu Pond, south-west of Tokyo’s famous Ueno Park, has played a significant role throughout the turbulent history of Japan’s capital. The pond is famous for its changing seasonal scenery, attracting vast crowds in spring for the blooming of its cherry blossoms, and being submerged in summer by the scared lotus plants that cover the surface of the lake.

For this design proposal, five gallery spaces spread out from the shore of the Shinobazu Pond are united by a single path to form a new contemporary art gallery in Tokyo’s cultural district. The form of the gallery was generated through reflection upon the art and architecture of Ueno Park’s existing galleries, notably the Le Corbusier and the Age of Purism exhibition presented at the National Museum of Western Art, a UNESCO World Heritage Site designed by the architect himself.

The gallery’s long narrow walkway invites visitors out into the lake before submerging them below the waterline, deep into the dense foliage of lotus leaves. The rising and falling depth of the path provides considered reflection points of the pond’s lotuses blooms, Bentendo Temple and famous cherry blossoms.