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| Photo by Ken Conley |
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| Photo by Ken Conley |
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The Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art was a pleasant surprise. From the photos I had seen of the exterior, it wasn't high on my list of places to visit. It's rock fascade and bulky shape reminded me of the bulky and squat Pulitzer Foundation in St. Louis, which I haven't seen in person. But on approach, the Hyogo museum has plenty to offer. A pedestrian bridge offers you several approaches into the building: to the front, to a ramp that goes to the waterside entrance, and to the third-floor plaza.
The waterside entrance faces an industrial inlet of Osaka Bay and is the the bookend of a waterfront park that Ando also designed. The part is utilitarian and spare, but serves its purpose as a place for kids to play games and for people to have space to walk. It also has an amphitheater, a popular Ando construct. The waterside entrance itself features a very broad set of stairs. It's easy to imagine large swarms of people having a seat on these stairs and chatting, but on a weekday during work hours it was nearly vacant.
The museum is built around three nearly identical sections. The center of each section is a stairway, though each stairway is different. The first is a four-story tall atrium with stairs leading up the side and a giant celadon column in the middle. The second is just two stories tall, with a shorter celadon column off to the side, and the third, I don't know. It was close to closing time and the third required a ticket, so I opted to save something for another time.
Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art Photos
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