Chichu Art Museum

Chichu means “under the earth” in Japanese; a particularly apt name for this unusual gallery which sits almost entirely underground.

  • Words: Philip Jodidio
  • Photography: Kaori Ichikawa

Tadao Ando began working on the small island of Naoshima in Japan’s Inland Sea in 1990 when he completed the Benesse House Museum and Hotel. Since then, he has built repeatedly on the island for the same client. Located on a hillside just opposite Benesse House, the Chichu Museum, which opened to the public in July 2004, was created for a small group of art works by James Turrell, Walter De Maria and Claude Monet.

Chichu means “under the earth” in Japanese, and this unusual structure is almost entirely underground because of local environmental protection laws. The exhibition Tadao Ando – The Challenge, which features works from Naoshima as well as other buildings by the Japanese master, is being held at the Armani Silos in Milan until 28 July 2019.

Philip Jodidio is the author of Tadao Ando, Complete Works, 1975-Today (Taschen, 2018).

Article taken from
Articles

Further Reading

Concrete Utopia

A revelatory exhibition at New York’s MoMA displays both the vision and the volatility of Yugoslavia during the Cold War.

Bach to the Future

An attempt to reach out to aliens becomes a retro-hit more than four decades after its launch.

Swimming Upstream

This year's forest fires in the Amazon marked an environmental catastrophe, but a Rolex-award-winning scheme to save its largest fish spells hope for the future.

Remote Museums

Far-flung objects of desire: pursuing knowledge to the edges of the world.

AI Killed the Radio Star?

Last year Francois Pachet was poached by Spotify as one of the world’s foremost pioneers in applying AI to music. As he pushes computers closer to the Holy Grail of composing their own works, should musicians fear or celebrate him?

The Ink Created From Polluted Air

'Pollution is nothing but the resources that we are not harvesting yet' claims the man behind the concept – one of the few innovators whose ultimate hope is that his invention will become obsolete.
Browse by Category