SCULPTORS | Isamu Noguchi’s Moerenuma Park, Sapporo :: Introduction
Many thanks to Hisashi Saikachi for this amazing flyover Noguchi’s amazing park!
Isamu Noguchi (rightmost) on a tour of the Moerenuma Park site.
大地に刻まれたメッセージ
189haの壮大なランドスケープ、モエレ沼公園。
ここはかつて「ゴミの埋立て地」でした。
いまから20年前、著名な芸術家が消え残る雪の中に降り立ちます。
彼が目にしたものは、原始の記憶をとどめた水辺の風景。
頭上にひらけた広大な空。そして人間によって汚された大地。
彼はこの土地をひと目見て「好奇心に駆られた、心を奪われてしまった」といいます。
その人の名はイサム・ノグチ。
常にフロンティアを求めて世界を巡った彼は、
ここに、心の原風景を見出したのかもしれません。
出会いのときから9ヵ月後、マスタープランを完成させてノグチは世を去ります。
「表情を失った広大な大地」に構想した生涯最大のプロジェクト、「全体を彫刻と見なした、宇宙の庭になるような公園」は、遺志を引き継いだ人々の17年にも及ぶ協働作業によって、2005年7月、ついにグランドオープンを迎えました。
いまモエレ沼公園には、年間80万人を超える市民や観光客が訪れています。
誰もが、このスケールに圧倒され、大地に刻まれたメッセージを読みとり、自分もまた風景の一部になって、思い思いの時間を過ごしています。
では、10年後、20年後、30年後、この公園はどんな姿になっているでしょうか。
公園が本式になるのは30年かかると初めてわかった。
人間はある程度までしか出来ないことがわかった。
完成するのは人間ではない。自然が自分でやるのです。
イサム・ノグチ
公園の未来。それは、ここに集うすべての人の手に委ねられています。
イサム・ノグチが私たちに残していった宿題です。
「モエレ沼公園の活用を考える会(モエレ・ファン・クラブ)」
Engraved message to earth
Moerenuma Park is a grand landscape boasting a total site area of 189 ha (approximately 467 acres).
This place was once a final waste disposal site.
One late winter day, years ago, a prominent artist set his foot on the lingering snow in this place.
What he saw then was a waterside scenery evocative of a primordial landscape.
Above his head was the dome of the sky, and under his feet the poor old Mother Earth sullied by human beings.
At his first sight of Moerenuma, it was reported that his eyes brightened and his curiosity was aroused.
The man’s name is Isamu Noguchi.
Having travelled around the world in constant search of a frontier, he may have conceivably discovered a place dear to his heart here.
Only nine months after his fateful encounter with this place, Isamu Noguchi went hence, leaving his completed master plan behind.
His lifetime-grandest project conceived for a refuse dump in a northern city the “park designed to be a sculpture in its entirety and a garden of the universe” was finally greeted with its grand opening in July 2005, after 17 long years of tenacious, collaborative efforts by people with common interests and aspirations.
Today, Moerenuma Park is a very popular place visited by over 800,000 people, both local citizens and tourists alike, annually.
Everybody visiting here relishes, after their own fashion, their time being overwhelmed by the daunting scale, perceiving a message inscribed on the earth, or melding themselves into the landscape.
What then, will the park be like 10, 20, and 30 years from now?
I knew from the beginning that it would take thirty years for the garden to mature.
Humans can only do so much. All humans can do is plant a tree thinking it will grow in a certain way.
It wasn’t humans who finished the garden. Nature did that all by itself.
By Isamu Noguchi
The future of the park is actually put in the hands of all of us in gathering here.
It is the homework that Isamu Noguchi has left for us to do.
★ Moere Fan Club | Fact Sheet – English PDF
Moerenuma Park | Designed by Isamu Nouchi [English]
Archives of American Art | Portrait of Isamu Noguchi by Mimi Jacobs, 1973
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You’re currently reading “SCULPTORS | Isamu Noguchi’s Moerenuma Park, Sapporo :: Introduction,” an entry on designKULTUR
- Published:
- 2014/12/06 / 14:08
- Category:
- ART + ARTISTS, CITIES, JAPAN, JAPAN | JAPANESE DESIGN, PUBLIC ART, TRAVEL, URBAN PLANNING
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