Japan: Chikatsu-Asuka Museum by Tadao Ando

[Third in a three-part series]

The Chikatsu-Asuka Museum is located about two hours outside of Osaka, in a national park famous for a particular tomb group known as 'Ichisuka Tumulus Cluster'. The museum itself is dedicated to the tombs in the area and the period they come from, known as the Kofun period (approximately the 5th to the 7th century AD). The keyhole-shaped burial mounds are the main relics of the Kofun period, and are found throughout the Kawachi area in various sizes, the largest being 800m long. The building itself contains exhibition areas, research facilities and a small library.



The museum consists of a very large stepped public area, with the program of the building located underneath, extending far underground. It is located within a valley, and is approached by a carefully choreographed sequence through the landscape. Earth berms block your view until you reach a turning point at this small concrete pavilion, which frames the building as you first notice it.




One of the most striking features of the building itself is a large monolithic volume at the centre of the composition, which is closed to light and users: from the bottom floor of the exhibition area, one can see into the dark, empty volume.

Three things struck me about the building as I walked about it.


1. The overall conscious position of the architecture in stark opposition to nature. This is evident in the clear delineation between the building and the natural environment it sits in, as well as in the choice of such an overtly artificial material as concrete used for the building surface.


2. The overall emptiness of the architecture, both in gesture and in detail. It seems composed of a series of abstract architectural gestures, which could be completely independent of program, and this vacuum of meaning can also be seen in the blankness of the formwork concrete used. The ultimate example of this vacuity is the large central volume which takes the central position in the composition, but has no meaning or function whatsoever within the complex as it stands.


3. At one point, I actually became quite frustrated with the apparent distance between the architect's design and the requirements of the building's users. Like in the Le Corbusier Museum in Tokyo mentioned in the other Japan piece, there seemed to be a lot of curatorial detritus cluttering the experience of the building as an architectural composition. For instance, in the main exhibition space, where the architect apparently wished to have a darker, more atmospheric space, lighting tracks have been introduced by the curator, and at the exterior of the tower, which features a staircase snaking around it to a viewing deck at the top, a steel gate prevents people from using it.

Well I still jumped the gate and took a few photos from the top. This is the surrounding landscape the architect wanted as the culminating point of his composition.


Preparing to leave, I think I figured out what Ando was going for: the emptiness of the program could be an attempt to pre-empt the building's re-use for a different purpose in the future. This explains a few things: the large stepped plaza, which could have multiple social uses, but has no use within the current program; the empty symbolism of the central tower, which could conceivably be reconfigured as a symbol of nearly any institution or organisation; the emptiness of the surface treatment, which could also be reconfigured to suit different purposes; and, finally, it explains the fact that the architect had motivations superior to the mere requirements of the client. Ando understood that a building such as this could be standing for many generations, or even centuries, and wanted to anticipate future societal changes which may mean the building could be re-used for other purposes. In the context of a museum for a forgotten civilisation, about whom little is known, this is incredibly perceptive. Although the building does not rigidly stick to the program required of it at the moment, it instead offers a much more profound insight into the nature of history and time as it relates to humans: it relates our own existence in the now with the contemplation of future generations or centuries in terms of its possible future utility, and in so doing reminds us that the ancient peoples it exhibits also built massive edifices, which were then subsequently forgotten, thus reminding us of the temporal nature of our own civilsation. This sets forth a chain reaction of telescoping time scales, culminating in the stark delineation of artificial and natural, clarifying the ultimate insignificance of man in opposition to the relative eternity of nature. This may be partly shown in a diagram like this: