On Naoshima, the 3.15-square-mile island in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea that Tadao Ando and other architects have turned into a popular station on the art-world pilgrimage route, the projects keep coming. In March, Sou Fujimoto completed a metal-mesh pavilion on the waterfront that lures visitors and local residents to climb inside its faceted form, while Hiroshi Sambuichi has designed a community center that will serve as a venue for Bunraku, a traditional form of Japanese puppetry, when it opens this fall.
Since 1989, Benesse Holdings and the Fukutake Foundation, a public interest foundation that is one of the major shareholders of Benesse, have been using art and architecture to revitalize Naoshima and some of its neighboring islands, which had been environmentally damaged by industrial operations for much of the 20th century. Ando helped put Naoshima on the map, starting with the Benesse House museum and hotel in 1992, followed by the Chichu Art Museum, the Lee Ufan Museum, and the Ando Museum. In the Art House Project, Ando, as well as individual artists such as James Turrell, Rei Naito and Hiroshi Sugimoto have worked to convert abandoned old houses on the island into site-specific works of art.
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