Architecture News Plus (ANP) – Architecture and Design Magazine

Genji Paper Sculputure Museum

This is a project by Cell Space Architects and it is located at Tokyo, Japan. There are eight images for Genji Paper Sculputure Museum.

: © Satoshi Asakawa

Project images

Designer's statement

This museum exhibits Japanese paper carvings and sculptures of Mr. Kiyoharu Uchiumi. He has reproduced some scenes from the Tales of Genji, which is the masterpiece written by Murasaki Shikibu in the Heian period. Mr. Uchiumi’s aim is that visitors appreciate his works with all their five senses. Lighting and music complement and allow full expression of his works The entire exhibition hall is a big stage, and the spectators walk by and appreciate individual scenes on the stage. We have reproduced the half-seen images viewed by Genji by using semitransparent partitions that re-create the atmosphere of the Imperial Court.

The partitions are created from laminated glass plates, with thin stainless steel mesh inserted between them, in order to give a dreamlike quality to the artist’s works.

Finer and more delicate materials than the usual architectural materials were used to achieve a balance with the artist’s works. We experimented with a lot of industrial woven materials that have a similar structure to Japanese paper made of plant fibers and ultimately a thin stainless mesh was selected. Laminated glass plates with lustrous stainless mesh have the exact effect we wanted to achieve for the partition of the hall and the facade. This special laminated glass provides expresses the mystery of the artist’s work.

Two opposite effects are superimposed. One comes from the reduced image visible through the stainless mesh and the other comes from the increased reflection on the glass surfaces.

By focusing lighting on the exhibits and reducing the entire brightness in the hall the boundaries between real image and virtual image overlap and then blend. A feeling of floating is thus engendered. The image seen through the glass changes over time and with viewing position.

Genji, an Imperial Prince, observed ladies in the Imperial Court through bamboo blinds. The obscured glimpses of the Court ladies sharpened his five senses and imagination in ways that would not have occurred with direct sight. Temporary, semi-transparent partitions were used in houses then and transiently transparent boundaries are key to re-creating the Japanese old architecture and culture.

Project details