21st Century Museum Of Contemporary Art

金沢２１世紀美術館

A good place to beat the present 37 degree Centigrade heat after visiting Kanazawa Castle and Kenrokuen Garden in Kanazawa is the 21st Century Museum Of Contemporary Art.



Fully air-conditioned and with Morning Glory flowers growing up over the glass walls to further shade the building, the museum was providing a welcome refuge for the tourist hordes coming from Kenrokuen's Mayumizaka entrance just across the road.



Even a tour group from Barcelona were finding the summer weather hard-going in Kenrokuen, so a cooling off period is just what is needed after all that outdoor sightseeing.

The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art which opened in 2004 is a beautiful, cool, low-rise glass circle by Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa and features contemporary art from around the world.

One particularly popular exhibit was the submerged swimming pool with a glass roof which visitors can enter through a basement floor and look up at people taking their photos from above. Fun.



At present the museum is showing two excellent exhibitions: Passion Complex: Selected Works from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and My Civilisation: Grayson Perry - a selection of works by the eccentric UK ceramic artist with his alter-egos of Claire the transvestite and Alan Measles, the teddy bear.

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art
1-2-1 Hirosaka
Kanazawa
920-8509
Tel: 076 220 2800
kanazawa21.jp
Admission 1000 yen


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