Tadao Ando Designs New Gallery Within the Massive Japanese Art Island

Japanese self-taught architect Tadao Ando designed a new gallery for the Benesse Art Site Naoshima — an immense art project encompassing three Japanese islands where Yayoi Kusama’s “Yellow Pumpkin” was recently pummeled by the typhoon. Called the Valley Gallery, the latest structure will be the ninth building by the infamous architect and will join the launch of the Hiroshi Sugimoto Gallery Time Corridor in marking the 30 year anniversary of the site’s first development — Benesse Art Museum.

The new gallery will be shaped up using Ando’s favored medium of concrete to form a trapezoid-shaped framework with a jagged roof that features slits to allow light and air into the space. Planted in the middle of a valley, mountains and greenery embrace the building creating absolute solitude for visitors while still being connected to other areas through walkways that follow the natural flow of the landscape. The structure will exist alongside Kusama’s “Narcissus Garden” and Tsuyoshi Ozawa’s “Slag Buddha 88” which has ornamented the pond since 2006.

“The building has a trapezoidal plane that opens at 30 degrees depending on the terrain. the double-layered building with concrete walls is covered with a 12 mm thick steel roof. The iron plate has openings made by geometric operations such as shifting and cutting, and the natural breathing such as rain, wind, and light is taken into the inside of the building as it is. I wanted to create a space that is as strong as a crystal, even if it is small,” said Tadao Ando about the Valley Gallery.

In case you missed it, Zaha Hadid Architects designed a Hollywood-Inspired Studio City Expansion in Macau.