Ribbons of light filter through undulating screens that beautifully wrap Aomori’s Nebuta House museum, creating the atmosphere inside of a traditional Japanese home and the impression at night that the building is a giant floating lantern.
Stephanie Forsythe and Todd MacAllen, of molo design, won an international architecture competition in 2002 for their design of a housing and community project in Japan. The competition was judged by Tadao Ando and Jean Nouvel and sponsored by the City of Aomori.
Eleven years later the project had transformed from its original programme of family apartment housing and community facilities into the beautiful Nebuta House; a unique cultural building inspired by the art, craft and the profound living spirit of Aomori’s Nebuta festival.
The Nebuta festival is one of Japan’s largest festivals, drawing millions of people to Aomori, home of 300,000 people, every August The festival is a form of storytelling, where larger than life heroes, demons and animals from history and myth, come to life in luminous three dimensional forms created from paper and light. Through the year Nebuta artists design and draw new creations. In the final three months, the artists collaborate with teams of craftspeople to make the giant lanterns in wood, wire, paper and paint. For the first week of August each year, the Nebuta floats light up the night as they are paraded through the city streets of Aomori. Athletic teams of men and women animate the floats by pushing and pulling them, spinning them and lunging them toward onlookers.
Moving with the floats, hundreds of thousands of dancers jump and chant to the deep sounds of taiko drums and the music of bamboo flutes. Participants experience something deeply human yet primal in spirit as they are unified in an intense release of energy that happens during this ancient Japanese festival. There are several theories as to the festival’s origins, one being that it is intended to rouse the sleepy spirits of people from the heat of summer, to prepare for the Autumn harvest.
The Nebuta Museum is intended to be a house for the mythical Nebuta. Functionally its meant to elevate the art forms of Nebuta to new heights and to introduce them to more people in Japan and internationally.
For the development and construction phases of the project, molo assembled a team that included: Yasuo Nakata of d/dt Architects, Frank la Rivière of Frank la Rivière Architects inc., Yoshiharu Kanebako of Kanebako Structural Engineers and PT Morimura & Associates Ltd mechanical/electrical engineers. The City of Aomori selected Kajima – Fujimoto – Kurahashi Construction JV as the principal contractor.
In March 2009 construction of this unique and sculptural building began on its waterfront site in Aomori City. Twelve-meter tall vertical ribbons of steel encircle the building. At points they are swept aside at ground level to create openings for people to pass through. The ribbons are also individually twisted and angled to emphasize particular views and reflect coloured light into the building.
The use of red is influenced by the local lacquer ware and smoothly coats the steel in a very similar way. The steel ribbons are prefabricated in a factory then brought to the site, installed and given further shape using a multi-point connection system. In the age of computer fabrication none of this is digitally produced, but was designed through physical models and handmade by very skilled artisans.
Each ribbon is given subtle variation and each catches light in a slightly different way, creating differences in colour and a shifting pattern of light and shadow that changes through the day. Although there is variation between the ribbons, each ribbon is shaped to respond to the ribbons on either side, creating a varied yet unified, harmonious effect overall. This mysterious building enclosed by a ribbon screen houses the giant paper creatures within a shadowy dwelling shaped by arranging the volumes of ancillary rooms. Inside, the building is black. The shades vary by material and details are kept as simple as possible so that the building serves as a backdrop for the sculptural Nebuta artifacts.