Teshima Yokoo House / Yuko Nagayama & Associates

Located in Teshima, an old port town lying in Seto Inland Sea, “Teshima Yokoo House” sits as an art museum for an elderly community employing coloured glass to create dynamic scenes.

Teshima Yokoo House technical Information

Architects : Yuko Nagayama & Associates
Location : Teshima, Japan
Typology : Cultural Architecture / Art Center
Architect in Charge : Yuko Nagayama, Daisuke Yamagishi
Artwork And Concept : Tadanori Yokoo
Area : 185.0 sqm
Project Year : 2013
Construction : Naikai Archit Co., Ltd
Site Area : 444.27㎡
Total Floor Area : 179.65㎡
Photographs : © Daichi Ano

Thanks to the multiplied effects of the constantly changing sunlight in combination with the glass screens, the museum never shows visitors the same face

– Yuko Nagayama

Teshima Yokoo House Article

The “Teshima Yokoo House”, a collaboration between artist Tadanori Yokoo and architect Yuko Nagayama, was created by altering and renovating an old private house located in a hamlet in the Ieura District, facing the harbor that forms the entrance to Teshima Island. Making full use of the building’s existing layout, the exhibition areas are divided into a “Main House,” a “Warehouse,” and an “Outhouse,” displaying 11 two-dimensional works. Other features-a stone garden with a pond, and a cylindrical tower-are devoted to installations, so that the art spaces seem to expand symbolically to cover the entire site, making it a philosophical zone that simultaneously calls to mind thoughts of both life and death. Thanks to the building’s use of tinted glass to control light and color, the sunshine, breezes, and natural hues of the island, as well as the artworks themselves, assume a range of different appearances, turning visitors’ spatial experience into a series of interconnected collages.

The coloured glass works as a medium that changes the scenery that people see through it. The red glass controls the information in terms of colour and tone, while the black glass governs the quantity of sunlight.

– Yuko Nagayama

The result in a museum in which glass makes static scenes come to life. ‘Each “scene” becomes a collage in the entire space,’ says Nagayama. ‘Thanks to the multiplied effects of the constantly changing sunlight in combination with the glass screens, the museum never shows visitors the same face.’