Echigo-Matsunoyama Museum of Natural Science
Matsunoyama, Japan
Takaharu & Yui Tezuka Architects/MIAS

Takaharu and Yui Tezuka inserted a sleek exhibition tube within the rugged steel armature at the new Matsunoyama Science Museum

© Katsuhisa Kida

For more photos click on 'photos & drawings' above. To see the people and products behind this project click on 'people & products.'

By Naomi R. Pollack, AIA

Japan's Niigata Prefecture isn't called "snow country" for nothing. The region gets an astounding 95 feet of snow annually—enough to blanket land, trees, and buildings with a 16-foot-deep layer of icy precipitation from December to April. Resisting this enormous load drove both the design and construction of Takaharu and Yui Tezuka's scheme for the Echigo-Matsunoyama Natural Science Museum, done in collaboration with architect and engineer Masahiro Ikeda. Commissioned for the 2003 Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, a regional event that included public sculpture and new buildings by the Dutch firm MVRDV and the Tokyo-based Hiroshi Hara + Atelier, the project occupies a beautiful site 145 miles north of Tokyo where mountains meet fields once cultivated for rice. Like a submarine built to withstand massive snow loads, the Cor-ten steel structure hugs the ground, then turns vertical with a 112-foot-high tower reminiscent of a giant periscope. Taller than the deepest drifts, the tower's observatory is an ideal spot to survey the rolling, wooded landscape—even in the dead of winter.

A clear departure from the glass-and-steel structures typical of many Japanese architects today, the heavily armored museum looks more like an industrial relic than a brand-new cultural facility. The building's irregular form, variegated surface, and absence of highly articulated details all contribute to its unique appearance. "I wanted to make a building that looks like a ruin," explains Takaharu Tezuka. The museum also represents a new direction in materials and forms for the husband-and-wife team best known for their experimental houses that integrate inside and out [archrecord.com & RECORD, December 2002, page 98].

The architects turned the tower into an unusual sensory experience, keeping the 160-step ascent in semidarkness and punctuating it with an artist-designed light-and-sound installation activated by a solar-energy sensor on the roof. At the top, climbers are rewarded with a flood of daylight and a dazzling, panoramic view of the hilly landscape and indigenous buna trees that lie down under the weight of the snow each winter and pop back up each spring.

Encased within the museum's rusting-steel armature, a stark white tube runs the length of the building, narrowing where people walk and widening where they pause to look. Instead of separate galleries, the museum has one long corridor lined with display panels, tanks, and terrariums, and some large images of regional plants and animals projected directly onto the walls. The only discrete gallery contains a donated collection of butterflies mounted in cases stacked from floor to ceiling.

The architects inserted the great picture windows where the building bends, so they could open up sectional views in wintertime of compacted snow and any forms of life suspended within it. While designing the museum, they envisioned daylight filtering through loose snow at the top of great snow drifts and seeping inside the museum. Because of the snow load and the tremendous openings—the largest one is 39 by 13 feet—the windows had to be made of 3-inch-thick acrylic, the same material used at aquariums.

While man-made interventions were necessary to keep the interior comfortable year-round, the Tezukas are happy to let natural forces have their way outside. In fact, the building's exterior has already begun to take on the yellowish-red hue of the iron-rich soil. The architects hope that in 30 years the land will return to its unaltered state. To jump-start that process, they enlisted the aid of an ecologist and local volunteers who gathered and transplanted indigenous saplings and seeds to the site. "Our intention was not to make a beautiful landscape, but to restore it," says Tezuka. Offering dramatic vantage points for visitors to appreciate the snow and scenery, the Matsunoyama Museum underscores that beauty.

See the January 2004 issue of Architectural Record for full article.

Location:
Matsunoyama, Niigata, Japan

Gross square footage:
13,435 sq. ft.

Total construction cost:
$6.3 Million

Owner:
Matsunayama-machi / Secretariat of Tokamachi Regionwide area Munical cooperation

Architect:
Takaharu & Yui Tezuka Architects/MIAS
1-29-2 Tamatsutsumi
Setagaya-ku
Tokyo 158-0087, Japan
Phone: 81(0)3 3703 7056
Fax : 81(0)3 3703 7038
www.tezuka-arch.com