Completed in 1989, the Children's Museum was a turning point in the career of the Japanese architect Tadao Ando, ​​who until then had mostly worked in very narrow urban spaces. The project on the side of a mountain in the Japanese city of Himeji was one of the first opportunities Ando had to work on a large scale.

The project is a cultural and educational center for children divided into three different pieces, a central building that houses a library, theaters, and multipurpose rooms, a second building that functions as a workshop, and an open-air plaza located halfway between the two buildings. The whole complex is united thanks to a wall that runs through the natural environment with views of the lake.
In 1987, the Japanese architect Tadao Ando was selected to develop the project of a cultural and educational center dedicated to evolving the artistic and creative capacities of children. By being able to work on a larger scale than in his previous works, the Children's Museum allowed Ando to achieve a monumental aspect that he had not reached until now, and it was located on a hill full of lush vegetation and with views to a large lake outside the city of Himeji, in the Japanese prefecture of Hyogo.

Even though in his previous works Ando had not reached the degree of monumentality that he would later achieve in the Children's Museum, there are a lot of references to those projects in it. One of the best examples is found on the wall that joins the three main areas of the complex, which is reminiscent of the long wall that had to be walked to reach his Church on the Water, whose construction ended while Ando was working on the project of the Children's Museum.

If in his Church on the Water the wall was placed with the intention of blocking the views of the pond on which the temple was located, obligating the visitor to walk through it listening only to the flow of water, in the case of the Children's Museum the longitudinal wall extends containing the slope on one of its sides, and completely open on the opposite side to the views of the lake, which the visitor can intuit behind the lush vegetation in the foreground.
 
“The wall which runs along the pond cuts through the slope of the hill and is incorporated in the architecture, expressing by itself a strong will almost like an earth work. The wall is recognized as an element of a space to create a space open to the surrounding areas. This suggests invisible roofs and walls to the visitor”.
Tadao Ando1

That wall is the one in charge of joining and spinning the three spaces that make up the Children's Museum complex. Of these three spaces, two are buildings, the main and the largest being the one located to the south of the complex, and the smallest, with the functions of a workshop for children, the one located to the north. Between these two buildings, in addition to the long wall that joins them, is the third space, a walled square that contains a grid of pillars and acts as the organizing nexus of the complex.

In addition to the tasks of being the organizer center of the complex, the walled square located in the intermediate area of ​​the complex also serves as an open-air rest space. Inside the reinforced concrete retaining wall that shapes this plaza there are a total of sixteen nine-meter-high columns also made of concrete that are in charge of continuously redefining the views of the lake and the landscape.

Turning now to the analysis of the buildings, the main or largest one houses the functions of a library, restaurant, multipurpose room, and theaters, one outdoors and the other indoors. The building is composed of two staggered volumes of reinforced concrete that are arranged in parallel to each other, reminding to the Koshino House that Ando himself had designed and completed in 1981. These two volumes are separated by their shorter side by a pond and connected only by an elevated walkway.

Inside, the building has various exterior frames that make the user's way of perceiving the landscape be in constant change. Around these two concrete volumes, there is a large pond arranged in a staggered manner, reminiscent of a waterfall, that manages to reflect the large concrete building in its different water terraces.

In contrast, the other building, located at the northern end of the complex, is composed of a single volume with a square plan measuring sixteen meters on each side. The building has two floors and inside houses the functions of a crafts workshop for children, where they can freely use all the tools to develop their artistic abilities. The second floor has an open-air roof terrace that is accessed by a ramp and that serves as an outdoor workshop and as an observatory of the impressive natural landscape.

As for the materials used by Ando in this project, the use of reinforced concrete stands out again, where his usual poetry of light and shadow is constantly reflected. Glass is also introduced into the project, allowing a constant dialogue between the interior and the exterior of the building that helps the visitor understand better the natural environment in which it is located. In addition to this, Ando recognizes water and nature as architectural elements that help to configure the space.

The Children's Museum building was a milestone in the career of the Japanese architect Tadao Ando, ​​who until then was used to working in constricted and narrow urban spaces. That was one of the first times that he was able to work in an immense rural setting, which allowed him to create a building with a monumental appearance never before seen in his work.

NOTES.-
1.- Tadao Ando. «Tadao Ando: 1983-2000». Madrid: El Croquis Editorial, pp. 248.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-
- Frampton, Kenneth. (1991). «Tadao Ando». New York: The Museum of Modern Art, pp. 54-61.
- Ando, Tadao. (2000). «Tadao Ando: 1983-2000». Madrid: El Croquis Editorial, pp. 248-265.
- Ando, Tadao. (2019). «Tadao Ando 0 Process and Idea: Expanded and Revised Edition». Tokio: TOTO, pp. 168-171.
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Area
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Area.- 7,006 m². Site area.- 87,222 m².
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Dates
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1987 - 1989.
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Location
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915-49 Oichinaka, Himeji, Hyogo 671-2233, Japan.
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Tadao Ando was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1941. Ando briefly worked as a professional boxer in his youth. At 17, he obtained a featherweight boxing license and participated in professional bouts in Japan. At the same time, he worked as a truck driver and carpenter, a trade in which he gained firsthand experience in constructing furniture and wooden structures.

Tadao Ando did not attend formal architecture school for economic and personal reasons. He came from a modest family in Osaka, and financial constraints prevented him from attending university. During this time, he began reading architectural books on his own, by Mies van der Rohe and other modern architects, including treatises by Le Corbusier, particularly the book Vers une architecture, which was decisive for his vocation. His alternative training consisted of reading, attending lectures, and learning from direct observation.

A self-taught architect, he spent time in Kyoto and Nara, where he studied firsthand the great monuments of traditional Japanese architecture. Between 1962 and 1969, he travelled to the United States, Europe, and Africa to learn about Western architecture, its history, and techniques. His studies of traditional and modern Japanese architecture profoundly influenced his work and resulted in a unique blend of these rich traditions.

In 1969, he founded Tadao Ando Architect and Associates in Osaka. He is an honorary member of the architecture academies in six countries; he has been a visiting professor at Yale, Columbia, and Harvard University; and in 1997, he became a professor of architecture at the University of Tokyo.

His notable works include the Water Church (1988) and the Light Church (1989) in Japan; the Naoshima Museum of Contemporary Art (1992); the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas (2002); and the UNESCO Conference Center in Paris (1995).

In 1991, he completed Rokko Housing II, the second phase of a residential complex begun in 1983 in Kobe, which was expanded in a third phase in 1998.

Ando has received numerous architectural awards, including the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1995. Tadao Ando was appointed to the Berlin Academy of Arts in 1995. In 1995, he was made a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government. He was subsequently promoted to Officer in 1997 and to Commander in 2013.

In 1996, he received the Praemium Imperiale for Architecture from the Japan Art Association, and in 1997, he was awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Gold Medal, the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal in 2002, and the Kyoto Prize for his outstanding career in the arts and philosophy in 2002.

His works have been exhibited at institutions such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, MoMA in New York, and the Venice Architecture Biennale, where he has participated in multiple editions since 1985. His buildings can be seen in Japan, Europe, the United States, and India.

In the fall of 2001, as a follow-up to the comprehensive master plan commissioned by Cooper, Robertson & Partners in the 1990s and completed in 2001, Tadao Ando was selected to develop a new architectural master plan for the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, to expand its buildings and enhance its 140-acre campus. The project included the construction of the new Stone Hill Center exhibition building (2008) and the expansion of the Clark Museum, which reopened in 2014.

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Published on: July 24, 2021
Cite:
metalocus, GONZALO GARCÍA MORENO
"Monumentality in the mountain. Hyōgo Children's Museum by Tadao Ando" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/monumentality-mountain-hyogo-childrens-museum-tadao-ando> ISSN 1139-6415
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