Weekly Photo Challenge: Grid

Last year, I was very lucky to have been able to get up close and personal with original paintings by Manet at the National Art Center here in Tokyo, which was part of a touring expo from the Musée d’Orsay! Even though NACT is the largest museum in Japan, it only holds temporary exhibitions. In the same year it opened, 2007, NACT hosted “Claude Monet : L’art de Monet et sa postérité”, which saw more than 700,000 visitors over its 76 day duration – an average of over 9,000 people each day! The most successful exhibition to date, though, was in 2010; “Post-impressionnisme 115 chefs-d’œuvre de la collection du Musée d’Orsay” attracted over 10,000 people each day during its 72 days in Tokyo.

Aside from the immensely popular exhibitions, there’s another reason people love to visit NACT. Simply, it is one the most architecturally beautiful structures in the country. Even if there isn’t any artwork showing, it’s worth a visit just for the building itself. NACT was designed by renowned Japanese architect, Kisho Kurakawa, whose work you can see all around Japan, as well as in Australia, the U.S., across Europe, and throughout Asia.

The entrance lobby consists of a massive glass façade that is intended to bring nature in. The outside trees, grass and sky are almost a part of the design! The transparent wall waves around the front of the building in a very elegant manner and in the afternoon, the grid-like beams cast an array of mesmerising shadows all throughout the atrium. It is beautiful, but hard to photograph!

If you’re into fashion design, make sure you check out the next major exhibition The Work of Miyake Issey (March-June, 2016)!

Check out this week’s Photo Challenge “Grid” for more posts. Thanks Michelle for the theme!