shigeru ban's art museum and recreated iconic villas form simose facility in hiroshima

simose art museum in japan celebrates shigeru ban’s architecture

Overlooking the Seto Inland Sea, in Hiroshima, ‘Simose Art Garden Villa’ is a lively complex that hosts a museum, an ensemble of houses, and a restaurant, all designed by the internationally renowned Japanese architect Shigeru Ban. Scattered within a lush rectangular plot right in front of the shore, the structures offer visitors a multisensorial journey through exquisite craftsmanship and a wide range of art, accomplished by a meticulously designed landscape.

By visiting the facility, guests can experience the immersive art museum with its eight movable galleries that appear to float on a water basin, as well as spend their night in one of the ten recreated villas that bear Banʼs signature design. The museum stands as an artwork itself featuring eight colorful box-like exhibition rooms, a concept informed by the islands of the Seto Inland Sea. ‘Our concept is ‘stay in iconic architecture by the sea,” mentioned the team.

Paper House | all images ©Simone Art Museum

Shigeru Ban’s houses at the Simose Art Garden Villa

The ten houses are distributed in two categories; the Forest Villas and the Waterfront Villas. The first is spread among a grove of trees, while the other faces a water basin that reflects the sky. The Forest Villas include four structures based on Shigeru Banʼs earlier designs, alongside a villa newly designed for Simose. The Waterfront Villas accommodate five new mansions, each with unique features and a spacious terrace overlooking the Seto Inland Sea.

More specifically, the Wall-Less House is a remake of a vacation home built in Karuizawa in 1997, with three sides wrapped in sliding glass doors. This emphasizes transparency and integrates the structure into its natural backdrop effortlessly. The Paper House made of recycled paper tubes carries the architect’s fondness for this characteristic material and is a recreation of a villa built in 1995 on Lake Yamanaka. One can also find The House of Double-Roof, originally built in 1993 as a private retreat on a slope alongside Lake Yamanaka.

There is also The Furniture House, where furniture such as closets and bookshelves double as walls and pillars, initially built in 1995 as a vacation home on Lake Yamanaka. The Cross Wall House is a newly designed villa for Simone facility supported by two intersecting walls. The Kielsteg House A-E is a cluster of all-new villas, built with walls made of Kielsteg, a wooden construction material from Austria with a unique cross-section.

House of Double Roof

Once visitors enter the Simose art museum, they are welcomed in by large tree-like pillars that form the entrance hall. Floor-to-ceiling openings let the surrounding scenery flood the interior, while the outer wall made of mirror glass creates a play of space perception and reflections. The Simose Art museum is home to approximately 500 artworks collected over the course of half a century by Yumiko Shimose, President of Marui Sangyo Corporation, including many pieces inherited from her parents and co-founders of the company, Fukuei, and Shizuko Shimose.

passageway towards the exhibition rooms