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September 13, 2005
Peaceful Mind
After a long detour to the museum under the sizzling sun, the museum seemed so shining at my first glance. However, when I walked inside, it was even shinier.
Although his art works were really amazing, the building itself appeared even more impressive. Indeed, it was very moderate and natural, yet unique enough to show his world. Every place was full of lights, mostly with the projection of sunlight coming from outside. Windows were located to soften and spread the light, thus creating a calm and peaceful atmosphere. Moreover, when I got to the inner room on the second floor, its amazingly bright and warm surrounding just joyfully shocked me. The layout of pieces with respect to the windows was marvelous, and it couldn’t have been better to perfectly demonstrate each piece. Each piece just shined by itself, and it did not require any other medium than sunlight to highlight its existence.
Furthermore, with a slight reminder of my spatial design assignment, it made to examine the light effects in this huge box, the museum. Indeed, this museum was one of the most impressive buildings I have ever seen that have utilized the lights so efficiently. On one hand, another building that came to my mind was Casa Batilo in Barcelona, which was designed by Gaudi. In this building, a corridor with arch ceiling and the sunlight coming in from the tilted windows created grave yet delightful atmosphere alongside the corridor, and the most of all, I really liked the idea of using the sunlight instead of light bulbs. Similarly, in the Noguchi Museum, the sunlight was used to give more comforts and stability to the inner.
Besides from being amazingly impressed by the building itself, his crafts felt very humane to me. His technique of mixing the original surface of a stone and the altered part added the natural look to the pieces. Moreover, the forms appeared very organic and not artificial, although I had some difficulties in reading their meanings. However, it certainly showed his nature-loving human-caring style which would have probably been affected by his Asian background. Particularly, I really respect his idea of embracing the nature into his work in early time.
This experience of visiting such wonderful place was really inspiring, and I will definitely remember the deep emotion that I felt from the bright room on the second floor.
Posted by Jane Oh at September 13, 2005 12:16 PM