Place to sleep: Benesse House and Benesse Art Site Naoshima, Kagawa-ken, Japan

Sea of Time

Sea of Time by Todd Lappin

"Sea of Time" by Tatsuo Miyajima Submerged LED counters in a 200 year old Japanese house Naoshima is a small fishing island off the southern Japan coast on the Seto Inland Sea, between Honshu and Shikoku, within eyeshot of the city of Takamatsu. During the 1990s, the Benesse Corporation, a Japanese texbook publisher, partnered with architect Tadao Ando to create Benesse Art Site Naoshima, a series of spectacular contemporary art museums designed around the theme of "Nature and Art." (There's a nice summary of the place here.)

The Oval
View from The Oval
Chichu Art Museum
100 Live and Die
Sea of Time

About this place:

Set on a small island in Japan's Inland Sea, Benesse Art Site combines the themes of "Nature and Art" in a complex that includes a luxury hotel and two museums: "Benesse House Museum" and "Chichu Art Museum".

The hotel: "Benesse House" is an hotel with four facilities, Park, Beach, Museum and Oval. All these facilities have guestrooms. All the facilities and the rooms are designed by Tadao Ando. There is no room without sunrise or sunset over the sea. More than the artworks in each rooms, the rooms have a view on the outside artworks which are part of the natural setting.

The museums are built in the hill and are part of the nature too, the Chichu Museum is completely underground, with wonderful artwork by Claude Monet, James Turrel, and Walter De Maria on permanent exhibition.

The Benesse Museum exhibits focus on art from the 1980s, with pieces by Cesar, Richard Long, Frank Stella, David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Yves Klein.

There is another marvellous place on the island, which combines this time Japanese culture and Art. "Art House Project" is a permanent work initiated in 1998 in the district of Honmura. Artists remodeled old houses, transforming the space of each house into an artwork open to the public. The artistic space, the architecture, and the pasts of those who once resided in these spaces converge here with Japanese tradition and aesthetics.

Postcards about Benesse House and Benesse Art Site Naoshima:

  • Todd Lappin

    4 April 2008
    From:
    Todd Lappin

    You arrive by ferry, not on a seaplane, and don't expect Mr. Rourke or Tattoo to meet you at the dock. Yet in every other way, Naoshima, a small fishing island off the southern Japanese coast on the Seto Inland Sea, is fantasy island for fans of contemporary art and architecture. During the early 1990s, the Benesse Corporation, a Japanese textbook publisher, partnered with renowned Japanese architect Tadao Ando to create Benesse Art Site Naoshima, a constellation of art museums and guest accommodations on Naoshima—although it's more accurate to say that some of the museums are also guest accommodations, and vice-versa. Benesse House, the first Ando-designed complex built at the site, houses a museum and 10 boutique-style guest rooms. Atop the hill behind it sits The Oval, an Ando masterpiece with six exclusive guest rooms arrayed around a reflecting pool. The Oval feels like a stylish lair for a James Bond super-villain—an experienced enhanced by the fact that guests must ride a mechanized funicular to reach it from the Benesse House below. The Chichu Art Museum, also designed by Ando and opened in 2004, houses work by just three artists: Claude Monet, Walter De Maria, and James Turrell. Lastly, on the other side of the island in the village of Honmura, several traditional homes have been converted into site-specific art galleries. It takes a few days to explore all of Benesse Art Site Naoshima, but the luxury of being able to experience so much stunning art and architecture at different times of day—or even in the dead of night—is like a art-lover’s fantasy come true.

Gotanji, Naoshima-cho, Kagawa-gun, Kagawa, Japan
Takatsu, Kagawa-ken, 761-3110 JP
Telephone: 81-87-892-2030
Visit website

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Discovered by Todd Lappin
on 14 November 2007.
2979 views.