Step Into Tadao Ando’s World at the Garden of Fine Arts, Kyoto
Right by the Botanical Garden, and Steps from Kitayama Station
I arrived at the Garden of Fine Arts, Kyoto almost as soon as I came up the stairs from Kitayama Station on the Karasuma Subway Line. The facility was designed by Tadao Ando.
Kyoto has more sightseeing spots than I can count, especially temples, so I was amazed to find a place like this here. This was my first visit.
“Garden of Fine Arts” is such a great name, isn’t it? A garden—an actual garden.
It seems the site originally began as Daikoku Denki Co., Ltd.’s pavilion for the International Garden and Greenery Exposition held in Osaka in 1990. That pavilion was also designed by Tadao Ando.
Apparently, the very idea of enjoying paintings reproduced on ceramic panels was a world first. It really was the go-go bubble era—Japan was shining back then…
At the time of the exposition there were four works, and four more were later added, bringing it to what it is today.
Starting with Monet’s Water Lilies
The works here are paintings fired onto ceramic panels, so they don’t deteriorate easily even when left fully exposed outdoors. It’s a wonderful idea: being able to enjoy paintings in the open air. There are eight of these ceramic-panel works on display in total.
After paying the admission fee—100 yen! So cheap!—the first work you see is Monet’s Water Lilies, Morning. They’ve plunged that famous Water Lilies right into the water, and it immediately shows what ceramic-panel art can do, haha.
Whether Water Lilies actually looks beautiful when it’s in the water is another matter, but the fact that they went ahead and did it is pretty amazing. Monet would probably be surprised too…
And from here, the journey through this garden of paintings begins. The entrance is on the ground floor, but the main space unfolds underground. This is Tadao Ando’s world in a nutshell…!
Beyond the opening is the Kyoto Prefectural Botanical Garden.
That’s the only touch of greenery inside the garden. Other than that, it’s nothing but stark concrete and artificial reflecting pools.
Walking Through a Strange Space
Concrete, with the Occasional Painting
You enter from the ground floor and gradually descend as you make your way through the complex passageways.
As you walk, the scenery keeps changing, and it gives you that disorienting feeling of, “Wait, have I already been through here?!”
This one is Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. It hardly needs an introduction.
And at the very end, there’s a giant waterfall. It’s as wide as the entire building—really dynamic.
The Biggest Highlight Is The Last Judgment
The biggest highlight at the Garden of Fine Arts is Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment. It measures an incredible 14 meters high and 13 meters wide, and apparently it’s nearly full scale. I had no idea it was that huge…
It still feels enormous even when viewed from a distance. It’s almost as tall as the building itself, and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say the size of the building may well have been decided around this one work…
Near the exit, paintings by Renoir and Van Gogh are displayed side by side. For some reason, the layout has you viewing them through glass set into cutouts in a concrete wall.
Is the point to show the paintings, or to show the building? By this stage, it almost feels like the paintings have become part of the architectural work itself. You see the paintings through glass, but beyond the glass it’s still open air, so I honestly can’t tell what the intention was, haha.
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