An isolated island amid many that dot the Seto Inland Sea, Inujima once helped fuel Japan’s early industrialization. Close enough to Honshu, the country’s main island, for easy transport yet far enough to keep noxious fumes at bay, Inujima reached its productive pinnacle in 1909 when a copper refinery opened on its rocky shores. But after a mere 10 years, the factory was abandoned and its brick edifice left to crumble until its rebirth some 80 years later as the site of the first of several planned Inujima Art Projects.
Aptly named the Seirensho, or “refinery,” the new facility follows the path set down by Tadao Ando’s Chichu Museum on the neighboring island, Naoshima [record, October 2005, page 116]. Having successfully resurrected one forgotten factory outpost as a flourishing center of art and architecture, the Naoshima Fukutake Art Museum Foundation decided to take on another. This time they invited conceptual artist Yukinori Yanagi to create a permanent installation, and the Hiroshima architect Hiroshi Sambuichi, known for his ecological buildings, to design a structure that would memorialize Japan’s industrial past without adding to its energy expenditure.
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