Treasure Island

The latest addition to Japan’s Benesse Art Site, Tadao Ando’s Valley Gallery is a geometric gem that makes the most of its remote setting

- Por Joanna Kawecki. Fotos por Masatomo Moriyama

Merging nature, art and architecture, Valley Gallery, Tadao Ando’s latest build on Naoshima, is the Pritzker Prize-winning architect’s most conceptual design to date. It marks 30 years since his first building on the island, the Benesse House Museum, which was Naoshima’s first art museum, as well as a hotel. Nestled in the base of a deep valley, the new gallery is a modest structure with an angular steel roof and a trapezoid floor plan informed by the landscape. Ando aimed ‘to create an independent architectural space while preserving as much of the existing topography and trees as possible’, in order to make the most of the site’s potential.