Gallery Monma Annex
Under the eaves of about 50 years old residence, the tubular gallery was inserted in the renovated storage room. The site is in a residential area on the foot of Mt. Moiwa, where overlooks the downtown of city Sapporo. Even though the house is only 15 minutes away by car from the city central, natural swamp, which cannot be easily found from front road, remains in the back of the house. The gallery was designed as a tunnel which connects the nature and urban, or the artists and visitors. It is intended to have the visitors to discover new values and senses by the exhibitions in this gallery, just like discovering new scenery spreading as passing through the tunnel.
Due to the budget, the exterior structure around the building, including the level, was kept same, and tried to reuse the existing structure as much as possible. The concrete slab was newly placed in the position at about 400m lowered from existing floor level, to secure the inner width of about 1600mm, inner height of about 2150mm, and entrance height of 1660mm. Although, this gallery space might not be suitable for the exhibition, by considering some simple mechanisms such as, window arrangement that takes in outside environment, paint and color selection that can reflect incoming light and colors sensitively, and slightly inclined floor toward the terrace that invites visitors to the nature of swamp, this small space was designed to give a feeling of clear air which cannot be colored by the existing aspects.
Most artists who rent this gallery, often produce new work specifically for this space, or come up with a new way to display their work, or have some site-specific work using a nature of the swamp. A new displaying method unexpected by the designer of this gallery, or even an art work that takes in surrounding nature and seasons, would be produced from the artists inspired by this gallery space and surrounding environment. And when that happens, we believe that this gallery could also become a tunnel which connects architecture and art.
