Kanazawa Umimirai Library

Last updated
Kanazawa Umimirai Library
金沢海みらい図書館
Kanazawa Umimirai Library exterior ac (4).jpg
Kanazawa Umimirai Library
Location Kanazawa city, Ishikawa Prefecture, Flag of Japan.svg  Japan
Type Public library
Established2011
Collection
Size228,000 items
Access and use
Population servedGeneral public

Kanazawa Umimirai Library is a public library located in Kanazawa city, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. This is a contemporary building by the Japanese architects Kazumi Kudo and Hiroshi Horiba, completed in 2011. [1] Its surface creates a decorative grid made of some 6000 small circular blocks of glass which puncture the concrete surface of the building in a triangular array. [2]

Contents

Building

The firm that designed the library, Coelacanth K&H, describe the building as a "simple space" [3] of 45m by 45m and 12m high. It was completed in March 2011. The floor area is 5,641.9 square metres; the building's area is 2,311.9 square metres. The "single quiet and tranquil room ... resembles a forest, filled with soft light and a feeling of openness reminiscent of the outdoors". [3]

Prize

Hiroshi Horiba and Kazumi Kudo won a Japan Institute of Architects Prize for the library in 2013. [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ishikawa Prefecture</span> Prefecture of Japan

Ishikawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu island. Ishikawa Prefecture has a population of 1,133,294 and has a geographic area of 4,186 km2. Ishikawa Prefecture borders Toyama Prefecture to the east, Gifu Prefecture to the southeast, and Fukui Prefecture to the south.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mathematics and architecture</span> Relationship between mathematics and architecture

Mathematics and architecture are related, since, as with other arts, architects use mathematics for several reasons. Apart from the mathematics needed when engineering buildings, architects use geometry: to define the spatial form of a building; from the Pythagoreans of the sixth century BC onwards, to create forms considered harmonious, and thus to lay out buildings and their surroundings according to mathematical, aesthetic and sometimes religious principles; to decorate buildings with mathematical objects such as tessellations; and to meet environmental goals, such as to minimise wind speeds around the bases of tall buildings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birmingham Central Library</span> Former main public library in Birmingham, England

Birmingham Central Library was the main public library in Birmingham, England, from 1974 until 2013, replacing a library opened in 1865 and rebuilt in 1882. For a time the largest non-national library in Europe, it closed on 29 June 2013 and was replaced by the Library of Birmingham. The building was demolished in 2016, after 41 years, as part of the redevelopment of Paradise Circus by Argent Group. Designed by architect John Madin in the brutalist style, the library was part of an ambitious development project by Birmingham City Council to create a civic centre on its new Inner Ring Road system; however, for economic reasons significant parts of the master plan were not completed, and quality was reduced on materials as an economic measure. Two previous libraries occupied the adjacent site before Madin's library opened in 1974. The previous library, designed by John Henry Chamberlain, opened in 1883 and featured a tall clerestoried reading room. It was demolished in 1974 after the new library had opened.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zaha Hadid</span> Iraqi architect (1950–2016)

Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid was an Iraqi-British architect, artist and designer, recognized as a major figure in architecture of the late-20th and early-21st centuries. Born in Baghdad, Iraq, Hadid studied mathematics as an undergraduate and then enrolled at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in 1972. In search of an alternative system to traditional architectural drawing, and influenced by Suprematism and the Russian avant-garde, Hadid adopted painting as a design tool and abstraction as an investigative principle to "reinvestigate the aborted and untested experiments of Modernism [...] to unveil new fields of building".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hokuriku Shinkansen</span> High-speed railway line in Japan

The Hokuriku Shinkansen (北陸新幹線) is a high-speed Shinkansen railway line connecting Tokyo with Kanazawa in the Hokuriku region of Japan. It is jointly operated by East Japan Railway Company and West Japan Railway Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hiroshi Sugimoto</span> Japanese photographer and architect

Hiroshi Sugimoto is a Japanese photographer and architect. He leads the Tokyo-based architectural firm New Material Research Laboratory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kanazawa Castle</span> Castle in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan

Kanazawa Castle is a large, partially restored Japanese castle in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan. It is located adjacent to the celebrated Kenroku-en Garden, which once formed the castle's private outer garden. It was the headquarters of Kaga Domain, ruled by the Maeda clan for 14 generations from the Sengoku period until the coming of the Meiji Restoration in 1871.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shigeru Ban</span> Japanese architect

Shigeru Ban is a Japanese architect, known for his innovative work with paper, particularly recycled cardboard tubes used to quickly and efficiently house disaster victims. Many of his notable designs are structures which are temporary, prefabricated, or incorporate inexpensive and unconventional materials in innovative ways. He was profiled by Time magazine in their projection of 21st-century innovators in the field of architecture and design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Chipperfield</span> English architect

Sir David Alan Chipperfield, is a British architect. He established David Chipperfield Architects in 1985, which grew into a global architectural practice with offices in London, Berlin, Milan, and Shanghai.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kanazawa</span> City in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan

Kanazawa is the city in Japan and the capital of the country's Ishikawa Prefecture. As of 1 January 2018, the city had an estimated population of 466,029 in 203,271 households, and a population density of 990 persons per km2. The total area of the city was 468.64 square kilometres (180.94 sq mi).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isamu Akasaki</span> Japanese engineer (1929–2021)

Isamu Akasaki was a Japanese engineer and physicist, specializing in the field of semiconductor technology and Nobel Prize laureate, best known for inventing the bright gallium nitride (GaN) p-n junction blue LED in 1989 and subsequently the high-brightness GaN blue LED as well.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kanazawa University</span> Higher education institution in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan

Kanazawa University is a Japanese national university in the city of Kanazawa, the capital of Ishikawa Prefecture. Founded in 1862, it was chartered as a university in 1949.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kyoto Institute of Technology</span>

Kyoto Institute of Technology in Kyoto, Japan is a Japanese national university established in 1949. The Institute's history extends back to two schools, Kyoto Craft High School and Kyoto Sericulture Training School, which were forerunners of the Faculty of Engineering and Design and the Faculty of Textile Science, respectively. The former was moved to Sakyo-ku, Matsugasaki in 1930 and changed its name to Kyoto Industrial High School in 1944. The latter developed into Kyoto Sericulture High School, under supervision of the Ministry of Education in 1914, and changed its name to Kyoto Sericulture Technical High School in 1931 and then to Kyoto Technical High School of Sericulture in 1944. The two forerunners merged in 1949, due to educational system revisions, to establish the present School of Science and Technology. Together with Shinshu University and Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, the Institute is one of Japan's three historical centers of textile research.

Ryue Nishizawa is a Japanese architect based in Tokyo. He is a graduate of Yokohama National University, and is director of his own firm, Office of Ryue Nishizawa, established in 1997. In 1995, he co-founded the firm SANAA with the architect Kazuyo Sejima. In 2010, he became the youngest recipient ever of the Pritzker Prize, together with Sejima.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa</span>

The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa is a museum of contemporary art located in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan. The museum was designed by Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of the architectural office SANAA in 2004. In October 2005, one year after its opening, the Museum marked 1,570,000 visitors. In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic it attracted only 971,256 visitors, a drop of 63 percent from 2019, but it still ranked tenth on the list of most-visited art museums in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Presidential Palace, Damascus</span> Building in Damascus, Syria

Presidential Palace is the residence for the President of Syria, located in Damascus. It is located in the west of the city, on Mount Mezzeh, north of Mezzeh neighborhood, next to Mount Qasioun and overlooks the city. The main building covers 31,500 square metres. The entire plateau of Mount Mezzeh is part of the palace premises and is surrounded by a security wall and guard watchtowers. In front of the building is a large fountain and the palace itself largely consists of empty rooms clad in Carrara marble.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sou Fujimoto</span> Japanese architect (born 1971)

Sou Fujimoto is a Japanese architect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Masao Horiba</span> Japanese businessman (1924–2015)

Masao Horiba was a Japanese businessman. In 1945, he founded Horiba Radio Laboratory, now Horiba Ltd., a manufacturer of advanced analytical and measurement technology. Masao Horiba received several awards from the Japanese government including a national Blue Ribbon Medal, and was the first non-American to receive the Pittcon Heritage Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Riken Yamamoto</span> Japanese architect

Riken Yamamoto, born 1945 in Beijing, China is a Japanese architect. In 2024, he received the Pritzker Architecture Prize, considered to be the most prestigious award in architecture, becoming the 9th Japanese architect to receive such honor.

References

  1. "Kanazawa Umimirai Library by Kazumi Kudo and Hiroshi Horiba / Coelacanth K&H Architects". de zeen Magazine. 22 June 2011. Retrieved 6 November 2015.
  2. Gibberd, Matt; Hill, Albert (20 August 2013). "The Return of Ornamentation". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 18 October 2014. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
  3. 1 2 "Works: Kanazawa Umimirai Library". Coelacanth K&H. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 6 November 2015.
  4. "Japan Institute of Architects Prize". International Union of Architects. 23 May 2013. Retrieved 6 November 2015.

36°35′39″N136°36′15″E / 36.5943°N 136.6043°E / 36.5943; 136.6043