New Forms Taschen 089

Arata Isozaki Nagi MoCA

Nagi cho. Okayama. Japan, 1992-94

This smali museum was designed by Isozaki for the permanent display of the works of three contemporary Japanese artists. In this image, the work by Shusaku Arakawa. which represents mirror ■mages of the famous Kyoto garden of Ryoan-ji, is situated in an mdined tubę (see page 96). which makes it very difficult for the viewer to stand up straight.

seems to accentuate the fundamentally weak holdings displayed within. This is one of Japan's few national museums, with limited funding provided by the Japanese Ministry of Finance. Because of administrative wrangling, it took no less than sixteen yearstogo from theoriginal project designed by Maki in 1970 to the 1986 opening. Created in 1963 as an annex of the Tokyo Museum of Modern Art, the Kyoto Museum did not have a single work of modern art of its own at that datę, which explains a good deal of the current emptiness. The rest is undoubtedly explained by the fact that the acquisitions budget, of less than one million dollars a year, has not been increased in morę than ten years. Because Japan has no fiscal encouragement for donations to national museums, the Kyoto National Museum of Modern Art is left to fend for itself, seeking as it may to fili the large modern spaces designed by Fumihiko Maki.

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