Thanks to financial news giant Bloomberg, and the creative vision of architect Akihisa Hirata, Tokyo’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOT) has a rather impressive new pavilion to stand beside its main entrance. The mysterious yet graceful white box, with its mesmerising, almost pixelated extrusion, will play host to a series of cultural programs for young artists; an attempt to invigorate the local art scene, but also an international architectural icon thanks to Akihisa Hirata‘s captivating design. Inspired by his musings of what a building may look like if its walls continued to grow like the branches and leaves of a tree, the pleated embellishment’s of Hirata’s pavilion consist entirely of combinations of isosceles triangles; appearing to be both organic and computer-generated in one eye-poppingly brilliant oxymoron.
Inside, there’s a calmingly, contemplative gallery space in which the architect continues his creation’s semblance to nature; likening its atmosphere to the shade of a tree, whilst outside the day’s progression brings new and exciting changes to the structure’s appearance; as daylight falls and the lighting within evokes an entirely new ambience and aura. Whatever time of the day, Akihisa Hirata’s Bloomberg Pavilion is as enchanting a delight as we’ve witnessed for some time…
Photography © 2011 Takumi Ota
