VOL.200 FEBRUARY 2025
HISTORIC JAPANESE PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE OF THE MODERN ERA Uniting Tradition and Innovation: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

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The museum is distinguished by its beautiful circular shape.
Photo: ISHIZAWA Yoji

Kanazawa City in Ishikawa Prefecture¹ prospered as a castle town from olden days. The center of this city is where the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa opened in 2004. The building was designed by SANAA, the duo of architects SEJIMA Kazuyo and NISHIZAWA Ryue.² This public building, which has won international awards, is a leading representative of Japanese architecture of the 21st century.

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa is located in a traffic flow that connects the famous Kenroku-en,³ one of the most famous Japanese gardens in Japan, and the downtown areas of Korinbo and Katamachi. The beautiful circular shape of its building has become a modern symbol of Kanazawa City. OCHIAI Hiroaki, Director of the Museum’s Public Relations Division, spoke to us about the museum.

“21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa was built to create new culture and generate more active for the city. In the 1990s, the prefectural government, Kanazawa University, and other public facilities were relocated one after another away from the center of the city. Amid concerns about the decline of urban functions, building an art museum was considered one way to create a facility that would attract more people to the city center. The museum holds special exhibitions on a wide variety of themes with a focus on contemporary art. The Swimming Pool and other permanent exhibits by noted artists are also popular.”

The floor plan above shows how the museum’s public spaces and galleries are in an arrangement like a city. A through I indicate the location of the permanent exhibits.
Photo: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa was designed by SANAA, a team of two architects—SEJIMA Kazuyo and NISHIZAWA Ryue. The museum’s Public Zone, which includes the People’s Gallery and Lecture Hall, which are open to the public free of charge, and the 14 exhibition rooms (Galleries) are arranged as if they were independent buildings, creating an experience similar to walking around the back alleys of a city.

“The main architectural concepts of the museum are multi-directionality, horizontality, and transparency. With entrances on all sides, the museum is circular and equally open in all directions. It was built to be a highly public building, like a park, where citizens and visitors can come and go freely.”

Both the beautiful glass-walled design and these creative concepts have been highly acclaimed overseas. The museum building itself has received the Golden Lion Award at the 2004 International Architecture Exhibition, Venice Biennale and other international awards.

OCHIAI adds, “This building is also distinguished by its great flexibility—spaces can be arranged by removing partitions between Galleries. This is similar to the idea of removing one or more fusuma (sliding doors)⁴ in a traditional Japanese house to create a large space. Some also liken the outer glass-walled passageway to the engawa⁵ of a traditional Japanese house. So, although it is a circular, innovative, modern building, it also has the makings of a traditional Japanese house.”

OCHIAI believes that these architectural features of the museum are fitting for Kanazawa, a city known for its traditional crafts.

“In Kanazawa, there is a way of thinking that connecting tradition to the future is not merely about preserving the old, but also about adding in the new and cherishing it. I believe that 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa is a place that perfectly embodies the idea of uniting tradition and innovation.”

In fact, the various aspects of the latest architectural technology was employed to build the museum, including the advanced installation method, where its construction is made of 122 pieces of delicately curved glass, precisely calculated to form a circle.

“Actually, a wide variety of chairs are placed throughout the museum to provide a space where people can freely relax. When you visit Kanazawa, we hope you will come to the museum and enjoy not only the works on display, but also the relaxing experience of blending into the various landscapes woven by the museum’s architecture.”

• 1.Kanazawa prospered during the Edo period(from the early 17th century to the mid-late 19th century)as the castle town of the Maeda clan of the Kaga Domain, with its Kanazawa Castle, and many of its early modern period cultural assets remain. The city is famous for its traditional crafts such as Kutani ware porcelain, gold leaf crafts, and Kaga yuzen silk, and is also known as a place where noh theater and other traditional performing arts have been passed down.
• 2.SANAA has won numerous awards, including the Golden Lion at the 2004 International Architecture Exhibition, Venice Biennale, and the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2010. In addition to this museum in Kanagawa, their recent major museum projects include the Kumanokodo Nakahechi Museum, the Iida City Ogasawara Museum, the Louvre-Lens (Reims, France), and the New Museum of Contemporary Art (New York, USA).
• 3.Kenroku-en is a place of scenic beauty that was shaped over a long period of time by successive lords of the Kaga Domain, which ruled Kanazawa. Known as one of the Three Great Gardens of Japan, it is a representative of the type of gardens created by daimyo feudal lords in the early modern period.
• 4.A type of furnishing unique to Japan, mainly in the form of a sliding door. It has a wooden frame covered with Japanese traditional paper undercoat from both sides, and a surface covered with cloth or paper.
• 5.A wood-floored corridor set up outside a room in a space between a Japanese-style room and an outdoor garden. Its function is similar to that of a wooden deck, porch, terrace, or veranda in Western architecture.

By MOROHASHI Kumiko
Photo: ISHIZAWA Yoji; 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

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