We are happy to announce that the Simose Art Museum (Hiroshima, Japan) was listed on “Prix Versailles 2024: The World’s Most Beautiful Museums”. Announced each year at UNESCO since 2015, the Prix Versailles is a series of architectural competitions that shine a light on the finest contemporary projects worldwide.
Excerpt from the release.
“Back in 2002, for Expo.02 in Murten, Switzerland, the architect Jean Nouvel, 2008 winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, first imagined a temporary monolith weighing nearly 4,000 tonnes yet appearing to buoyantly float on the surface of the lake. A space odyssey! What was dreamt up by the one was later magnified by another, Shigeru Ban, 2014 Pritzker Prize winner, at the Simose Art Museum, in the form of eight mobile galleries with walls made of coloured glass that light up at night over the water of a reflecting pool. This symbolic scenery amplifies the physical scenery of the Seto Inland Sea with a nod to the beauty of the Se-touchi Islands. The structure blends with the garden of seasonal plants and flowers which served as motifs for the French artist and designer Emile Gallé (1846-1904), whose work makes up a significant portion of the museum’s collections. Despite the concept’s hefty ambitions, visitors are greeted by a canopy on a welcoming scale.”
Article on amazingarchitecture.com