Great People of Kanazawa Memorial Museum

From the leaflet of Great People of Kanazawa Memorial Museum.
After looking at two exhibitions and having lunch at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, on July 22, my wife and I visited Great People of Kanazawa Memorial Museum [1] nearby. The Memorial Museum displays the materials of the following persons born or grown up in Kanazawa: (from left to right in the upper row of the photos in the image) Yoshiro Taniguchi, architect (1904-1979); Jokichi Takamine (1854-1922), chemist; Setsurei Miyake, critic (1860-1945); (in the middle row) Godo Nakanishi, conservationist and poet (1895-1984); Toho Fujioka, scholar on Japanese literature (1870-1910); (in the bottom row) Yoichi Hatta, civil engineer (1886-1942); Daisetsu Suzuki, scholar on Buddhism (1870-1966); Hisashi Kimura, astronomer (1870-1943).

The building of the museum consists of three floors. On the first floor, materials of Taniguchi, Nakanishi and Hatta are shown; and on the second floor, those of the other five persons. The third floor has a hall and a lecture room. I was especially interested in the materials of Takamine, because I was one of the recipients of the third Takamine Prize for high school students [2] (now personal recipients are chosen from junior high school students, and a group prize is provided for junior high schools).

Though it was one of summer holidays, there were no other visitors while we were in the Memorial Museum. It would be highly desirable to let children visit such a place in order to know the life and work of the great people and have dream and ambition, as written in the leaflet of the museum.

There are respective memorial museums at other sites for the three writers born in Kanazawa: Izumi Kyoka (1873-1939), Tokuda Shusei (1871-1943) and Murou Saisei (1889-1962) [3-5].

References

1. Web site, Great People of Kanazawa Memorial Museum (in Japanese).
2. Web site, Dr. Takamine Jokichi Memorial Foundation (in Japanese).
3. Web site, Izumi Kyoka Kinenkan Museum (in Japanese).
4. Web site, Tokuda Shusei Kinenkan Museum (in Japanese).
5. Web site, Murou Saisei Kinenkan Museum (in Japanese).

The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.
I first visited the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, (see the above photo) just after a week of its opening on October 9, 2004. Last Friday (July 22, 2005) I made the second visit there with my wife. The outermost walls of the first floor of this museum form a circle with a diameter of 112.5 m. This form makes it possible to explore the museum from all directions [1].

There we looked at two exhibitions: "Drawing Restraint: Matthew Barney" and "Another Story: Selected Works from the Collection." Barney's exhibition was the sum of his rather strange drawings (for example, a self-portrait drawn on the ceiling by jumping on a trampoline), sculptures, photographs and a film (expressing an abstract story suggesting a repeated rebirth and collapse by the use of images of whaling and the tea ceremony).

The purpose of "Another Story" was to show part of the diversity of the event, pattern of human perception and sense value in the world. I found Carsten Nicolai's work entitled "Milk" interesting. It consisted of 10 monochromatic photographs, which captured the surface patterns of milk in a tray shaken by different frequencies from 10 to 110 Hz. Soft hemispheres constituting the patterns singly or in aggregate made me think of the source of milk, i.e., breasts.

1. Web site "21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa".

The Oldest Fountain in Japan

Japan's first fountain built in 1861.

The fountain in Kenroku Park (see the photo) is associated with a special memory of mine. One of my brothers, who was senior to me by six years and died at the age of 9, left an unfinished drawing of that fountain. I kept it until I was of the same age as he had been at his death. So, every time when I visit Kenroku Park these years, I go to see this fountain.

Last Friday, my wife and I passed through Kenroku Park to go to the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, and saw that fountain on our way. I did not remember what was written on the bulletin board at the side of the fountain, but it reads as follows ("Kasumiga-ike" in the quotation is a large pond in Kenroku Park).

Fountain: Having been built in 1861, this is the oldest fountain in Japan. Its water source is Kasumiga-ike, and a head of water makes the height of jet about 3.5 m.

The above is my translation from Japanese words on the bulletin board; English words there simply read: "Funsui (Fountain); Japan's first fountain built in 1861."