Nebuta House by Molo Design

  Every August the city of Aomori in northern Japan celebrates – symbolically waking up from the sleepy summer months in preparation for autumn and, historically, the harvest. At night the primal beat of taiko drums and the haunting sweetness of bamboo flutes sound over streets filled with people dancing and the stunning Nebuta themselves: huge, colourful paper lanterns that glow and float above the crowd as they are paraded through the city. It is estimated that the annual festival has a history that stretches back to the eighth century and it is an important cultural event, attracting millions to the city each year. molo’s new Nebuta House is a structure as dazzling as the festival itself, which will showcase and celebrate the beauty and excitement of the Nebuta celebrations, and trace the festival’s cycle through the year.

Molo is a Vancouver based design and production studio, “Dedicated to an exploration of space making in combination with innovative experiments in manufacturing, materials and structure.” This innovative approach includes many aspects of design, from the small-scale intimacy of furniture, lanterns and bags to the large scale of structures like the Nebuta House. For molo working with smaller scale designs, “Heightens the sense of human scale and physical experience in architec- ture.” Nebuta House goes a step beyond this, for molo this is a building where, “Humans enter the world of giants, a place for storytelling and imagination.” The building is, after all, a house for the mammoth Nebuta lanterns, a shadowy place of myth and magic.

The sculptural building is located on the waterfront of the city, and is a part of a network of buildings dedicated to the arts in Aomori prefecture. The cityscape is primarily made up of box like buildings in shades of grey and beige, in this environment the Nebuta House is a vibrant shock of colour which molo compares to dramatic red curtain: “Turning everyday urban experiences into theatre.” There is something intensely theatrical about the new building, which fittingly matches the theatricality of the Nebuta Festival, but unlike the special transience of festivals, the new building will be a permanent place of beauty and imagination.

Nebuta House will archive and exhibit the Aomori Nebuta Festival and house the Mythical Nebuta themselves – the giant paper lanterns synonymous with the festival. Drawings, photographs and artefacts will trace the evolution of the festival from its historical roots and its continuing shifts and developments as contemporary Nebuta artists make their own mark on the traditional art. Every year the Nebuta Lanterns are remade and this seasonal cycle of preparation and celebration will be on display – so no two visits to the Nebuta House will be the same. Nebuta House will display the creativity, craftsmanship and dynamism of the festival, and this purpose is reflected in the building’s unique design.

The shifting and dynamic exterior of the structure is made up of 820 twelve meter twisting “ribbons” of steel. The ribbons were all individually crafted and manually adjusted, so each is uniquely shaped, pointing to the spontaneity and vitality that comes with handmade objects. The screen was inspired by the shadows created by the primeval beech forest surrounding the city and has an organic feel, which fittingly reflects this idea. Like the brightness and gloom of the forest, the building’s screen provides a shifting pattern of light and shade within, emphasising the luminous beauty of the Nebuta lanterns. As well as the forest, the exterior recalls the screens used to in traditional Japanese houses to layer the connection between interior and exterior spaces – in this spirit, the screen provides a threshold between the everyday, outside world of the city, and the theatrical world of myth within. The burnt orange colour was chosen to match the colour and sheen of local lacquerware and the quality of the screen changes with the light. For molo, the screen is particularly striking next to the changing colours of the seasons: the whiteness of the snow in winter and the apple blossoms in the spring and the orange and red of the falling leaves in autumn, this aesthetic connection to the seasons pleasingly links the structure to the festival’s symbolic association with the changing of the year from summer to fall.

As well as the exhibition spaces there is also a theatre and restaurant, the first on Aomori’s waterfront. The Nebuta can be seen from both of these spaces, imbuing the entire structure with a sense of myth and mystery. The ribbons of steel also play an important part in defining the atmosphere of the space, and visitors can see the sea through the gaps between their twisting, sculptural forms. In this sense Nebuta House truly is a threshold, a stunning stage for the liminal space where the fabulous world of the Nebuta meets the reality of the everyday. +

PHOTOGRAPHY Images courtesy of molo design www.molodesign.com

1. A place to celebrate This rendering captures the dynamism of

the festival, a dynamism reflected in the twisitng facade of the building itself.

2. The colour of the exterior of the Nebuta House changes with the light.

3. The dappled light and shade within the Nebuta House heightens the buildings exciting and deliciously mysterious feel.

4. The Nebuta lanterns inform the scale of the structure.

5. Twisting ribbons of steel give Nebuta House a feeling of movement.